Story Submitted by Alexis Labrada

When quarantine began my job closed along with school so I went back home to New Jersey. When I got back I realized I couldn’t see anyone, not even close friends because my dad has asthma which makes him more susceptible to the virus. While I had my sister with me I did not know what to pass the time. At first it was easier to keep busy with my online classes since I had to finish the semester off, but I was not as motivated as I was at school. Once classes ended I really did not know what to do. I was doing pretty well with keeping active as fitness is what I enjoy most. I was doing at home workouts and posting them on my social media to help others get active during quarantine. I also wrote personalized at home workouts for my clients to do since my job was a personal trainer. However, keeping active was not enough to get me through the days. I decided to start taking on challenges. I wanted to be able to hold a handstand for a long period of time, which is so random, but I practiced every day until my wrists hurt. This was something that was fun for me to do daily, but again wasn’t enough. I then decided to get better at speaking in Spanish since my family speaks it so I started to use Duolingo. However, yet again it was not enough so I decided to take on the biggest challenge of them all, renovating my dad’s house. This has been keeping me busy for the last 3 months and I can’t wait to see the end results.