I walk through these streets of Sudbury on a breezy, yet sunny afternoon and I am surrounded by people I don’t know. I don't have to walk further than one hundred feet from my house, and I’ll pass three groups of walkers that I have never seen before in my life. The whole point of quarantine was to get people to stay home, yet I’ve never seen more people walking around my neighborhood in my life. Seriously, I have no idea where all of these people came from. 

Families have taken this time to get closer, as they should, and that has apparently included daily family walks, usually with a dog. Spending time with your family (and your dog) is the appropriate thing to do at this point, as we are now surrounded by them 24 hours a day. 

Seeing these families makes me consider how my connections with my own family has strengthened through these tough times. Our daily life since summer has consisted of a few words exchanged at dinner, and then back to our rooms for the remainder of the evening. My siblings would get back so late some nights that those few words at dinner sometimes didn’t even happen. We see each other so often now days that our bonds have become better and better, and we will still have a full summer ahead of us to continue these bonds. It is important that we are able to take advantage of these unique times before I’m sucked away at high school, and my brother departs for college. 

Life comes at you fast, and you will have to move on to new things before you know it. These times may be rough, but if you take what you can out of them, you may just gain a stronger connection with your loved ones.