Clearly, the coronavirus is testing everyone’s patience and resolve. Yet, amid the uncertainty, a resilient spirit thrives.
To provide a bit of a diversion from the news around us, we’ve asked our community contributors to share their personal stories of optimism during these troubling times.
Their stories will appear weekly. We hope you find them inspirational. We hope they provide you with some perspective. And we hope they remind you, as captured in some of their personal stories, that we are all in this together.
‘A comforting balance’
As I write this, my friends and I are talking to each other over a video call in place of the time we’d usually be chatting away during our lunch period at school.
My friend came up with the idea just last night when our group chat seemed to be filled with nothing but disheartening thoughts.
It’s possible our senior year could come to a close three months earlier than we thought – and without the experiences we’d planned to share together as a group.
We realized, though, that the present situation has the potential to bring us closer as friends, despite “social distancing” that seems to have quickly impacted us in one way or another.
For example, my friends and I had planned on writing personal letters to each other leading up to graduation with words of encouragement and inspiration before diving into our first years of college.
Now, we’re considering embracing an entirely new take on that idea by creating a pen-pal system.
Each week, we plan to mail each other uplifting letters, developing a new kind of connection – a stronger connection when working-side-by-side and simply conversing over lunch isn’t an option.
Going forward, I’m hopeful that these will be only a few of the many small changes to appreciate. And I’m hoping they provide a comforting balance to the uncertainty brought about by the current situation.
This story was written by Yusra Khan, a community contributor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Yusra, 18, lives in Alpharetta. She is a senior at Alpharetta High School and is a member of the UpLift Muslim Youth council.
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