Dear CIROS #3
Quarantine has allowed me to see how colorful the world is...
Dear CIROSÂ is an online initiative to link students together in the unprecedented times and isolating distance we live in today.
Dear Sofia,
Don’t worry about the final chapters of our fantastic novel. They are still being written.
For me, it’s useful to think that maybe we are the own writers of our novel…except my novel is not really fantastic. Mine is a mix between reality a world I made up in my head to keep me company in this solitude since my world has shrunk, not to five, – which seems like a blessed multitude – but to one.
I bet being in your childhood bedroom must give you a bittersweet feeling. I was dreaming about mine the other day. It did not really feel like a dream. It was more of a journey to the past. Isolation has made my brain dig very deep back into that box of unwanted memories. I have been having nightmares. Not the type where you fight a giant spider while it is ferociously trying to eat you alive. Rather, they have been about the traumas I experienced as a teenager…and I don’t know about you, but between those two, I’d choose to fight the spider.
Sadness and anxiety come and go. It mostly shows up on Thursdays for some reason. Last Thursday was particularly bluer than most. I even wrote one of those huge text paragraphs you write when you are sad or mad at someone. Except I didn’t send it to anybody. I just needed to let it out. How do you cope with your feelings?
Happiness and positivity also come and go. Today it is a mix between pink and a touch of yellow. What color is your day? Quarantine has allowed me to see how colorful the world is, even when it is highly affecting my emotional stability. I guess it has given me a new perspective.
To be honest, days seem like a ride on a Ferris wheel. Sometimes you are high up, and sometimes you are at your lowest. Spring has brought a lot of mixed feelings and uncertainty. The only thing that is certain is the sun will always shine through. Today it is shining right above my white-and-purple-flowered orchid.
I hope it shines where you are too, and that this is all over soon.
— Ilka, writing from the Hague
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