Towards Spring
COVID-19 is like a demon that took away the happiness from many people. At the end of 2019, the arrival of COVID-19 disrupted people’s lives, and the world changed. In my hometown Hunan, the subway was not crowded, the streets were not lively, and people no longer saw the bustling city center. My family was affected in a way it had never been before. The sudden outbreak of the pandemic caused my family to suffer economically and affected the standard of living. My depressed emotional problems finally led my parents to decide to go abroad to make a living.
Due to the pandemic, my family was in financial trouble. In China, my father acted as the breadwinner, and my big family depended on his salary. Because of COVID-19, my father was stuck at home and could not work for about two months. The family’s only income started to disappear. My parents felt huge pressure. The family’s spending had to be controlled because of the fear that our family would always be in such a situation. Less money for the family means a poor quality of life for us. My two sisters and I were all in school, and we were all in the stage of using money because we had to take a lot of after-school classes, which was a big expense. During that time, my sisters stopped all the after-school classes. No one in my family had as much pocket money as we used to have before.
In addition, the epidemic aggravated my emotional problems. I was in high school and was experiencing a lot of pressure and anxiety, which is typical for high school students. In China, a high school student’s score in the National College Entrance Examination determines whether a student can go to a good university or not. The epidemic’s arrival made these worse. My high school was in a small town and far away from my home, so I went home less. My only way to escape from stress was gone. It was a boarding school, and the school was not close to my home, so I had very few opportunities to go home each semester. Because of the epidemic, I was forced to stay at school and breathing fresh air outside the school became a luxury. I have always been a person who likes to daydream, but at that time, my mind went out of control. I became unable to concentrate in class, thinking about what my future would be like and worried about if the world would always be in that situation.
As a result, my parents decided to take me to Chicago to make a better living, and my life changed once again. Although my father could continue working when the epidemic got better, his income was much lower than before. My uncle and aunt already worked in the United States for few years, and they said the quality of life was particularly good, so my parents also decided to go abroad. After I came to the United States, I was like a kindergartener who must learn everything again. Due to language, living styles and cultural differences, I began to explore this new world that I have never experienced before. Even though it was difficult to adjust the life here at the beginning, life got better and less stressful once it got on track. I continue to study in the United States, and the study pressure is not as great as in China. I work part-time job, and I use the money I earn to buy things I like.
The winter when COVID-19 began was the coldest. It was cold to the heart of my family. Fortunately, winter is gone, and warmth and hope continue in spring. The world is slowly returning to its original state. My family came to the United States and started our new life. Life is getting better every day, and I am content living my life where I am. No one knows what the future will be like, but a good life for me is to rely on my own hands to create.
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