It has now been almost two weeks since I started being in quarantine. All things considered, it’s not going as bad as I thought it would. I thought I would be dying of boredom and at my family’s throats. Instead, we are practicing “social distancing” (for the most part) and doing so has minimized the amount that we can annoy each other. The internet is also a saving-grace. I have been spending a large chunk of my time talking to my friends online while we play video games together.

Sometimes, I simply play video games to listen to and take part in the conversations my friends are having. This time with my friends feels very nostalgic to when we were in middle school and could not drive to each other’s houses, so we would play video games to talk. Spending all this time online though does make the world outside feels so disconnected from what we are experiencing inside our virtual worlds.

We have pretty much spent the last two weeks in a non-stop messing-around fest in all sorts of different games. We have watched each other play on streams online, we have built monuments, executed elaborate heists, and ventured into new worlds. Meanwhile, the world outside is panicking and it feels like everything is shutting down or has already shut down. Since I’ve returned home, three of my friends have had birthdays and my own is approaching soon. Usually, we would go out and celebrate but unfortunately anything considered non-essential has been forced to close, so that means any bars or lounges we would have liked to see aren’t going to be open any time soon.

However, this crisis has given my friends and I a lot of time to think about what we’re going to do after it is over. Since all of our classes are online now and we are all home, we finally have the freedom and opportunity to go on some real adventures together and explore this world when shelter-in-place is lifted. Right now, this time is unique because it is as if we are all taking a semester off of school but we don’t have the stigma often associated with taking a semester off. We will have a lot more free time to do all the things that we want to do but may not have the opportunity to, had we still been in school. My friends and I already have some ideas stirring about where we want to go and when.

All we need to do is make these plans concrete, and what better time is there to do that than now? Travel prices are pretty low to go anywhere in the world right now, hotel prices feel like they’re dropping by the minute, and gas is the cheapest it has been in more than 20 years in the US (so basically the lowest it has been in my life). It feels like the whole world is asking to be explored (in a couple months) and I know my friends and I are more than happy to accept its invitation and explore it.