Prompt #2 community
How have your feelings about home, neighborhood, and community been affected by the pandemic or any events that occurred over the past year?
Response:
With the changes that the pandemic brought on our lives home, in a physical sense, has become a lot more claustrophobic and stifling for me. Prior to the COVID lockdown last year I was very much an indoors person but I went out often enough just for the break in monotony that it never really got to me, now though it’s only ever been for necessary things and it’s starting to build up. I feel like constantly spending a vast majority of my time at home has, in addition to the stifling and claustrophobic feelings, also made me a lot more restless when I think about home and wanting to be anywhere but there. My feelings regarding neighborhood have changed just as much; I moved in November of last year and because of COVID I haven’t really talked to any of my new neighbors as much as I would’ve liked to. So while it’s almost been four months since then I don’t really feel much of a connection here which kind of saddens me as everyone here seems so nice, it’s just that I haven't found an opportunity between everything going on to really connect with everyone here. As for the wider community I never was really involved much to begin with, I volunteered at the library close to where I used to live and helped out with book sales but beyond that I kept to my immediate neighborhood so I can't really say my feelings towards the community have changed much.
-Farhad Wardak
