Quarantine

Quarantine.

I’m guessing most of us paid no heed to this ten letter word before March of 2020. It was the word we saw in movies. The situation we read about in history textbooks when plague hit.

So you can imagine this generation’s surprise — the generation that was so used to going out, spending time with friends, sitting in a classroom, working outdoors — when a lockdown was imposed, a state of emergency called. In the Kubler-Ross grief cycle, shock comes first and denial comes second. A lot of us were stuck in phase two for a large chunk of time during this pandemic. We were not used to restrictions such as curfew, not used to suddenly having to sacrifice our happiness in order to think of the good of other people.

Last March, I would have said this pandemic was the worst thing that ever happened in my lifetime. I spent my birthday waving hello to my relatives from my balcony. Day and night I prayed that we would have a normal graduation and what was supposed to be a “two-week” lockdown would end. That what we had worked towards for the past four years would finally pay off as we retrieved our diplomas and waved to our families from the stage.

Two weeks turned into two months. Graduation arrived. We drove through the school parking lot and received our diplomas as the staff clapped enthusiastically for us. And despite knowing that our school was trying its best to honor its seniors, the ache never really left my heart.

Graduation was something my friends and I had talked about the entirety of senior year. Something we direly looked forward to, something we made jokes about (“I wonder who we’ll sit next to?”), something we decided our outfits for six months beforehand. Not having the “normal” graduation was not only upsetting but a hard blow on all our long-awaited fantasies as well. No last goodbye, no last hurrah.

A year into the pandemic, I’m asking myself the question: what is normal? This word has been so objective for the better part of our lifetimes, so unanimously agreed upon. Yet this pandemic has switched our lens for everything. Normalcy is not so objective anymore. Health has been given a new meaning. Time and happiness have changed in our perspectives.

A while ago, when I discovered the way Allah answers our prayers, I burst into tears. Because when we pray, He gives us one of three answers:

1. Yes.

2. Yes, but not now.

3. I have a better plan for you.

Discovering this has changed my perspective on so many things. I have found that every time I turn to faith, I return healed from my wounds. There is virtually no question it can’t answer, no wound it can’t heal.

With this shift in perspective, I began trying to see the good in everything. We were quarantined, yes, but how many times had we wished for a longer break from school? A way to spend time with every single member of our families? A way to renew ourselves, to be given the opportunity to explore ourselves? To read all the books we had never found the time to read before and take on all the hobbies we couldn’t ever seem to fit into our schedules?

I personally found time to start publishing a story I had been drafting online. Finally found the time to plan every scene, every character arc, every plot twist. To go through the editing process, to finally put out something that fulfilled me.

I didn’t have a “normal” graduation, didn’t have a last goodbye, but I had so much more. I learned about myself. I had time to spend with my family, time to rectify the most important relationships. I had time to empathize with others, to put aside my desires and try to be selfless.

I had time to change.

The past twelve months have been scary, challenging, and painful. Some of us have lost loved ones, some of us have been sick ourselves, some of us have found it hard to even lift our heads from our pillows to attend class every day. We have all stood on the same battlefield, fighting the same war.

But like always, the battle ends. There are repercussions, but there are benefits as well. We may have lost a lot, but we have won things we probably didn’t imagine winning.

The light at the end of the tunnel is closer and closer than before.

In my time during this pandemic, the most valuable thing I have learned is that there is khair (good) in everything. And sometimes we just need to switch up the lens we are viewing life through, search for the eye of the storm in a hurricane, squint through the dust on the battlefield to the victorious on the other side, to be able to understand that.

Because when you have God on your side, He will never leave you disappointed.

By Kainat Azhar