“I was able to go home to my family in rural Maine, where my parents still had their jobs and the pandemic was relatively muted. Financially, things were stable and it was actually nice to have time with my parents and my siblings who also came home. But during an already intense period of transition out of college, COVID-19 caused a series of cancellations that shook my sense of what was possible for me in the coming years. I went through a couple rounds of getting a job or a program and that plan being canceled, and these changes made me feel deeply anxious. I felt like I was looking at potentially years without movement toward the things that I was hoping to build after college: a meaningful career and a warm community. Yet my anxiety was not at all exacerbated by financial struggles: I knew that the worst case scenario was that I would just stay at home, taken care of by my parents. I did not have to worry about paying off debt, the Student Income Contribution, or supporting my family. This is what enables me to experience only the anxiety brought by lost opportunities for career growth and social life.”
Miriam Cohen, she/her/hers, 2020, BF.
