My school has extended its spring break for a week and a half, and is switching to solely online classes for a few weeks after that. Illinois as a whole has announced K-12 school closures until the end of the month – just a little bit less time than I’ll be gone for. Of course, I understand the necessity of such measures: by all indications this is deathly serious and very contagious. However, that knowledge does little to blunt the impact of the fact that I will be away from my peers for a whole month, with little to occupy my time.

I am far from the worst affected by the closure, though: while I would not describe my relationship with my family as untroubled, it is at least not actively dangerous. The same cannot be said of some of my other classmates: another trans student has abusive parents, who screamed at him when he asked to visit a mutual friend over break. Another student was recently kicked out of his mother’s house, and has had to make emergency plans with friends. And none of this is even bringing up the peculiar kind of hell it must be to be in a risk group for COVID-19 and also have a poor home life.

At the end of the day, all I can do is sit, wait, and hope. I do have projects to occupy my with that I hope to make some progress on, and perhaps I’ll watch and play some new things (the new Sonic Riders fandub, in particular, has me on the edge of my seat). Maybe I’ll even mess with the theming on this site a little bit – I noticed some issues when writing this piece! I also intend to keep writing small updates: perhaps regular blogging will help my mental state over the coming weeks.

29 days to go.