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Collected Item: “HIST30060: Loneliness”

Give your story a title.

HIST30060: Loneliness

What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?

photographs

Tell us a story; share your experience. Describe what the object or story you've uploaded says about the pandemic, and/or why what you've submitted is important to you.

The past three years have been incredibly lonely. I've included here a picture of my younger brother on his 18th birthday: a picture I find eerily reminiscent of Edward Hopper's Realist paintings from the 40s and 50s. My brother has always been the most popular person in any room, constantly surrounded by friends, a real party animal. But on his 18th, he was alone (with me and my parents) and couldn't celebrate in the way he would have liked. Since then, he has had a makeup party, but it isn't the same. He also finished high school during this period, and god I feel sorry for the classes of 2020 and 2021. It is easy to be sorry for myself, who has only experienced university through the lens of a post-COVID world, but I was fortunate enough to celebrate my 18th with my friends, finish high-school not on zoom, go to schoolies and travel on a gap year before we were prevented by the pandemic. Poor Sam didn't get any of that, and that really makes me sad.

Use one-word hashtags (separated by commas) to describe your story. For example: Where did it originate? How does this object make you feel? How does this object relate to the pandemic?

Lonely, birthday, high-school, lockdown

Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)

self

Give this story a date.

2020-06-04
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