One thing that I have found that makes me happy, aka my silver lining, during this time of crisis is that I can spend a lot more time with my family. Normally, I would be out with other people or I am busy with work at home, so I do not get a lot of time for wasting time and not being productive. On top of my own schedule, my parents and my brother are constantly busy, so I pretty much don’t get to spend time with them during the school year. Now that most of us don’t have to commute anywhere, we free up literal hours from our schedule. I get to go on walks outside near a lagoon with my mom, play video games with my brother and talk about complicated science and theories with my dad. I still do not get to do it very often because my dad has a full-time job and still has to commute, my brother has his own school work because he is a University student and my mom still has to do her job and everything she does for my brother and myself at home like laundry, cooking, cleaning and similar chores. Still, being able to bug my family with incessant ramblings is one of my favourite pass times. Whether they pay attention to what I am saying or not, I will continue to talk their ears off.
I never thought about how much I enjoyed spending time with my family. My mom has trouble following along with whatever I am saying, but sometimes I have trouble following along with what I am saying so I do not blame her in the slightest and we tend to start joking about how we can’t focus on anything no matter what. Part of the problem is that I start speaking too quickly when I am passionate or interested in something. My dad normally can follow along with my conversation, but when I start to talk about things like psychology, because that is what I do for fun, even he can’t follow along. My brother tends to understand my speech and that is because he is simultaneously the smartest and dumbest person in my family. I would try to speak with other people outside of my family about things I enjoy, but most people my age don’t go out of their way to learn about things like the life cycle of a star or what actions trigger what types of reactions from the vast majority of people. I have one friend who does, but I rarely see her, so it is nice to have people who I know will listen to me and try to converse with me, no matter how random or complicated the topic is. Even if they can’t, bonding over complete nonsense and dumb jokes is one of my favourite ways to bond and I am glad that I have learned to appreciate it.
This is wonderful Aamenah! Passionate and descriptive, I hope you share this with your family! Definitely a silver lining 🙂