Cooped Up with Family

Marandah Mangra-Dutcher, Copy Editor

I love my family, I swear I do. However when you are cooped up with them and they are the only ones you see all day, everyday some problems arise.

Whenever someone is around the same person for a long period of time, they sometimes need a break. For example, on a weekend where I had a show choir competition trip which lasted for around 36 hours my friends started to get on my nerves. I went and took some time alone and was totally fine. The only problem is that alone time is hard to come by these days, with everyone being in quarantine.

Both my parents are working from home, my oldest sister lost her job and my other sister only works part-time. Everyone is home. All the time. Do not get me wrong, I do not have a small house. We each have our own room on the upper level, then there are four main rooms on the main floor and we have a mostly finished basement. We know when to seclude ourselves to our own areas but we need to talk and see each other at some point, like at every meal and when doing chores.

During the normal school year I was not home extremely often, I would typically have dinner with my family and see them for a few hours each day due to the activities and social life I have. Going from seeing them a small amount to only seeing them has caused a lot of tension. My sisters and I are at our throats. We can be calm and civil for a lot of the time but there are moments when we just can not stop arguing with each other. We did argue before this but never to this extent. My mom is tired of being home, she seems like an introvert but I honestly think she needs to talk to other people in order to be as bright and cheery as she normally is.  My dad has started going back to the office to use their internet but also to have some relief from us.

Internet is also another issue we have encountered as well. I live in a fairly populated neighborhood and a lot of the people around me are also working from home, so the internet and cellular data in our house is extremely weak. This has sparked arguments among my family as to who is using the most WiFi and why.

To be honest, I have started to look forward to working as a way to interact with others I am not related too. It helps calm me down and put everything into perspective.

Again, I love my family with all my heart but I do not know how much longer we can hold out in this quarantine.