by Angela Moore | Oct 12, 2022 | Leonia High School
Virtual school is not good for learning anything, but it is a lot more fun than being in-person. I mean my school district had literally no idea what they were doing, and you couldn’t really blame them. We all thought that this would only be a few weeks. Weeks turned into months and now I’m here in a two-hour-long psychology class doing my missing work. I have a lot of missing work, and I mean A LOT.
I have thirty-eight missing assignments.
That’s the reason I’m at my aunt’s house. My mom was over it and she thought my aunt would whip me back into shape. She was right. I’ve been here for two days and I have half of the missing assignments done from working on them in class, during meals, in bed, and in any free time I have. I had a lot of work but I knew my mom would be upset if I came home with anything incomplete.
I spent a lot of time talking with my aunt, and when she went to work, I spoke with her new cat. Sometimes her boyfriend would come over and we’d all hang out, and maybe get something to eat. She gets upset when people call him her “boyfriend.” She thinks she’s too old to have a boyfriend, but I think that’s silly.
Really, it was nice to have other people to talk to, after being stuck in a house and only seeing the same people for a year. The change of scenery was what pushed me to do better, even though there was cat hair everywhere and the faint smell of old people, it still felt fresh and new.
It felt nice to get my work done. I don’t want to miss any more.
by Angela Moore | Jul 12, 2022 | Leonia High School
Two years ago, I was told that three of my best friends from middle school were going to leave, meaning I had to start my high school journey almost entirely alone. I was losing some of the most amazing people I had ever met. The end of my eighth grade year, which was supposed to be a celebration of finally being freed from the constraints of childhood, ultimately grew to become an end to multiple significant friendships I had experienced throughout my life. Sitting on the stained, old couch in my living room, worn out from online school, I thought about all the hypothetical situations that could occur when we finally would go back to the building: Having nobody to talk to in class, eating lunch alone. Even worse, I kept thinking how because of health and safety precautions, it would be even more difficult to meet new people during the summer.
Walking into the high school on my first day, the hallways seemed outrageously crowded and labyrinthine. I walked with my older sister, who was familiar with the school’s layout, to try and find the classroom numbers located on my schedule. While strolling, my sister came across many of her friends, keeping conversation with them while I walked silently next to them awkwardly. Whenever I asked my sister for directions to a classroom, she would respond with a quick “I don’t know.” I truly felt like I wasn’t a part of anything. I had nobody to walk with. I was all alone.
Throughout the months I’ve been in school, I have had to hold onto beliefs of independence, autonomy, and self-reliance as I had learned them through online school and lockdowns, but it has been very hard to cling onto such beliefs when contrasted with the intimacies I yearn for. Now, instead of asking my friends for homework answers, I do them all myself. Instead of persuading my friends to tell me what the quiz questions were, I study hard and do well through my own efforts.
Maybe by confronting the loneliness I had always been afraid of, I was able to learn the capability to make my own happiness. Maybe.
by Angela Moore | Jul 12, 2022 | Leonia High School
At the beginning of quarantine, I was “blessed” with the company of my two older sisters who were sent home from college. In their minds, coming home was a curse, and I think this made me feel rejected in a way.
Eventually, being in the same home every day was affecting me more than I believed. My family was eating dinner together, and my sister simply asked me how my day was. The desire to scream was overwhelming. I was unable to engage in simple conversation without the need to yell. Was this a result of months cooped up inside? Later that night I attempted to befriend my sisters to prove to myself that I could spend time with these people that I love dearly. This was a failed attempt. I succumbed to anger, running to my room ashamed of the painful words that came out of my mouth, and am unable to write them now. As I stepped downstairs a bit later, I overheard my sister on a Zoom with two friends. I heard her say, “I think Sasha is struggling more than she thinks. She says she loves quarantine, but she is mad all the time and probably needs to see her friends.” Hearing these words led me to face a reality that I was avoiding immensely. I was not being my best self, although I had convinced myself that I was.
I ran back to my room, determined to work through my anger. I pulled out my journal from an unorganized pile of papers, notebooks, and folders, and wrote descriptions of all my angry outbursts as well as possible reasons for each. I was stressed about my parents’ health, I was tired of Zoom, I was scared of the possibility of my sisters leaving. I asked myself, “why didn’t they want to be with me as much as I wanted to be with them?” I knew these factors were affecting me, but I also knew that it would take more than identifying them to stop these mean words from bubbling over.
The next night, my mother and I each pulled out a guitar to practice. Unexpectedly, we ended up playing together, and the three other members of my family joined in to sing. It felt like a cry of pain that turned into an appreciation for being together. After we finished, my parents headed to their bedroom and I was left alone with my sister. It was my time to apologize: “Guys, this is really hard for me, but I am so sorry for being so rude. You don’t deserve it. I just want to spend time with you.” Both of my sisters responded with a hug. I finally understood that they too wanted to be with me.
These months were difficult, but learning to appreciate my family allowed me to grow. May we all cope with difficult times through the company of our loved ones.
by Angela Moore | Jul 12, 2022 | Leonia High School
The pandemic inspired many people to leave large, crowded cities and move into smaller towns like Leonia, where my family immigrated seven years ago. Such a massive demand on houses in open and uncrowded communities such as mine led to the sudden growth of prices to own or even rent a house. In turn, this led the owners of my house, who my family rented from the day we came here, to reason that it would be more beneficial to sell the house than continue to rent to us. Soon, my family began searching for a new house, one with a reasonable price for its age and condition.
Our house stood at the top of an incline, with a balcony in the back, opening to a beautiful view down the green, tree-covered hill. I loved this view because it made the house seem closer to nature. Meanwhile, my siblings cared only for the minuses which the house had and thus I was forced to fight them in convincing my father to buy our house.
This struggle over what house my family should buy lasted for several months, all the way from late spring to August. During these months I continued my attempts to persuade my family into buying our house. I managed to convince my mother on the basis that we grew too much in the house to simply leave it, and also I managed to convince my oldest brother to be neutral since he will spend most of his time somewhere else anyway. Yet the whole situation seemed to worsen for me because my family found another house, a new one, in Leonia with an equivalent price as ours. That house suited all of my family members and, unlike our house, it did not require costly repairs and renovations.
As the time for a decision neared, my father, figuring that such a decision must be consulted on with all of the family, began talking to me. I said, “I would most definitely choose to live in this house. I already got used to this house despite all of its problems. This house has a beautiful view of the outside world, and not only do I actually feel free in this house, out of all the houses we have seen in Leonia, this is the only one with windows large enough to breathe freely and ceilings high enough to stretch without hitting my head.”
In the end, I received what I wanted, the house in which I lived for practically half my life was now ours completely, and there was nothing else that would separate me from it.
In the end, of course, it wasn’t a fair fight. All the others were just houses. This was our home.
by Angela Moore | Jul 12, 2022 | Leonia High School
I remember looking at my phone and seeing a notification from Snapchat. V sent a snap. Confused, I opened the text. “We should become best friends,” it read. Although I was confused, I said yes because the overwhelming feeling of loneliness from quarantine was so powerful. I had hoped that this friendship would get me out of the feeling of being alone.
Soon enough, we were Facetiming and talking every day. My parents were still strict with COVID rules so seeing V. was hard. Now V was moving 40 minutes away. It felt as if I was going to lose my best friend.However, V and I became closer than ever when she moved to her new town. Our favorite hang out spot was in her new town: Boonton at the Bombers football games. Our bond only grew stronger. I can’t even imagine a life without her as my best friend.
I decided I had to write her a letter because we had a week of arguments. I printed the letter and took it to her house the weekend I was sleeping over for my birthday. V and I went into her bedroom alone and she read the letter. I poured my heart out. The last sentence I wrote was “You. Are. My. Home.” Those words are the most honest words that I have ever written. As V finished reading the letter, she stood up and gave me a hug. I will never forget this hug.
“I love you so much Dylan. I can’t imagine my life without you. I am not ever going to leave,” she said.
Having a home doesn’t always mean having a roof over your head. It can mean that you have someone who makes you feel the safest you could ever possibly feel and the tranquility of being yourself.
Home is not a definite place, but it can be a definite person.
