My Summer During the Pandemic Was One of the Best Ever

February 05, 2021

I am a full-time engineering student. When I’m not on a school term, I’m doing an internship. For the entirety of my time at university so far, I’ve never had a summer break — just alternating between school and work. In between terms, I would come back home to catch up with my family, only to leave again after a week or two.

Like most people, I thought I had a pretty good idea of how 2020 would go. The summer of 2020 was the term when I started my new, highly anticipated internship at a company I really resonated with. The plan was to live in a new apartment, make new friends, and enjoy free food at the new job. I had tickets to a concert and ideas for memories to be made. Only one of these things actually happened, though, as we all know what happened next.

When Coronavirus started spreading enough for schools and businesses to close down, these plans were cancelled. My vision of spending all summer long meeting new people and going to fun events vanished. I had to go back to my hometown and work from there. This, however, turned out to be the spark that set me up for a surprisingly great summer. 

The Family Reunion

Being back at home helped me to connect with my family. I am not very close with them and I definitely was not doing a good job of improving this relationship while I was busy studying at school or chasing the next internship. My parents and I don’t say much during dinner and when we talk on the phone, our conversations are short. That’s just our family dynamic.

During the four months when I was at home, however, I really got to notice and appreciate a lot more about them. I noticed how old my parents were getting and how they still worked hard anyway. I saw how happy it made my mom when she saw me eating her home-cooked meals every day instead of eating out. I noticed how freshly cleaned my room was, even though it had been unused for several months. Despite not talking much, my parents were inexplicably happy to have me home.

While I was looking forward to meeting many new people and going out, the pandemic forced me to take a step back and spend time with people who definitely deserve my time the most. Usually, I would feel like I was missing out if I stayed at home. I’m sure we all have an idea of what we should be doing while we’re still “young”. But with these expectations gone, I genuinely appreciate the opportunity to build my relationship with my family, take an interest in what they’ve been up to, and get to know them better. 

The Childhood Friend Reunion

This is where things get interesting. I’ve been friends with a group of people since elementary school. Like most hometown friend groups, we all went our separate ways after high school and would meet up a couple of times a year. With the pandemic redirecting us all back home, we had time to catch up.

Meeting up with one friend in particular, however, completely changed the fate of my summer. She still looked the same and had the same voice. But it was clear that she had matured since we last talked. She told me about how she wanted to travel the world. This was news to me. She told me about how she just up and left university for two weeks to backpack in South America. You can do that? Her goals were drastically different from mine. Naturally, it intrigued me and I wanted to learn more.

I realized that before this point I had been surrounded by people all a part of the same industry during my time at university and internships. Everyone around me, including myself, had the same goal of graduating and landing a well-paying job at a company they cared about. I was working hard for this.

Being forced out of the environment I had become comfortable in to spend the summer with someone who was not in this industry and who was not working towards getting the best possible post-graduation job, really widened my perspective on what my goals could be. The change in perspective got me excited to explore something new.

The Sunrise

I’ll be honest. During the first half of the summer, my main sources of entertainment were very similar to other people’s: social media and online shopping. For the first time in a while, I felt myself becoming addicted to consuming content. I was either constantly listening to something — a podcast, music — or constantly watching something on a screen.

Then, one day, my friend invited me to go watch the sunrise with her. By now, about half of the summer had passed and I was getting up later and later because I was staying up to watch useless videos at night. I hadn’t seen the sunrise in a long time, especially considering that in the summer, the sun rose at around 6:30 am. 

The next day, we both woke up at 5:30 am and drove to the lake together. To my surprise, there was already a considerable number of people there. Some were sitting and watching the horizon like us, but others were fishing, cycling, and rowing. I already knew that there is a whole community of people who wake up early to conquer the morning. I used to be one of them. But being in lockdown had caused a decline in my motivation that I was yearning to take back. Seeing everyone outside together, at hours when the majority of the city was still sleeping left a warm feeling inside of me. I was proud to be with this group of strangers who appreciated the morning as much as I had.

Then, when the sun began to rise above the water, turning the clouds into pink, fluffy cotton candy, it was as if everyone in the whole park paused for a moment to look. It was glorious. I had never been so grateful for such a common occurrence. All I wanted to do, was live in that moment.

A breathtaking sunrise in progress.

 Due to Coronavirus, the world had spun into chaos and confusion in a matter of months. The only thing I could be sure of was that the sun would always rise again to start another day, whether I chose to see it or not. Time continued to move forward even if the monotony of lockdown made it feels as if it stood still. 

This first journey to see the sunrise kicked off a series of other memorable trips to the lake and is what inspired the purchase of a key player for a great summer.

The Cheap Thrills

The summer of 2020 was when my friend and I bought our very first boat. But not just any boat. It was the cheapest possible boat that we could find. Originally, the plan was to rent some kayaks for a day, but it turns out that this activity was in high demand now that people had nothing better to do. Places were charging $60 per person and my wallet said not a chance. Instead, we scoured the internet and went to stores all over town to find an affordable boat. At one point we even considered using an air mattress. However, the lake near us is highly polluted and while protecting against Coronavirus is a priority, so is protecting against unknown waterborne diseases. We finally settled upon a two-person blow-up rowboat that cost $75, which was split between the two of us. While most young adult’s first vehicle is a car, ours was a dirt-cheap boat of questionable structural integrity.

The first time we got in, we went pretty far. We must have rowed for about 4 hours that day. Even though we grew up by this lake our entire lives, we had never seen the views one could only get if she was actually in the lake. We saw million-dollar lakeside cottages, wildlife experts conducting tests in the water, and tons of ducks. We rowed under a highway bridge and were amazed by how we had never seen it from that point of view before. It was as if we had travelled to a new city when in reality we were discovering a part of our hometown that we had neglected to explore for so long.

We continued rowing until there was no one else around us on the water. We kept rowing until we got stuck. That’s whyno one went this far. This part of the lake was muddy and way too shallow. We were several kilometres from where we started with no one else around on our first ever boat trip. I looked at my friend, she looked back, and we both just started laughing hysterically. A part of it must have been nerves from not being sure if we would make it back, but another part was just joy for being in this situation. We weren’t stuck inside watching a screen all day. We were stuck in the mud because we were idiots that didn’t know how to responsibly navigate a boat. It made me incredibly happy to be there with her.

We ended up having to walk through the mud, dragging our boat behind us to get to deeper waters. I don’t know how the boat managed, but it held up the entire journey back to shore as we rowed for several more hours. We never went that far again, but I’m glad we learned that lesson from experience rather than hearing someone tell us not to do it.

 Our boat adventures after this day involved more exploring as well as feeding the ducks and swans in the lake some peas. (At one point, we started playing a game where you got a point every time you landed a pea on one of the birds’ back.) I started to appreciate the wildlife that was around me a lot more. While we couldn’t hang out with other humans, the ducks were always there to watch the sunset with us.

Spot the pea on the goose’s back.

I was fortunate this past summer to have had such great experiences despite what is going on around the world. The pandemic has caused a lot of unwarranted devastation in people’s lives and I hope that you can find what keeps you grounded. Mine is being outside, living in the moment, and appreciating my physical surroundings. With circumstances changing rapidly, it forces us to redefine what we do to make us happy. In the coming new year, I urge you to build upon the relationships that you already have and most importantly, be creative in how you have fun!

✍️ Written by Lena Nguyen. Check out my Medium for more!