The Estranged Student

Mia Robillard-Day, 19

It was heartbreaking to watch my friends leave. I have a lot of international friends, and one by one they went back to their families. My “bubble” was fairly non-existent, because I was in a studio in the centre of town. It was all very daunting. When COVID-19 first struck, my boyfriend stayed with me for two months, which was really nice. But he had to go back home for the summer. It was weird – I was in a building that accommodates 150 students, but there were only four of us left. My room looks onto a big car park, which was closed. Throughout lockdown, it was dead, like a scene in a ghost town. One month, I didn’t see anyone I knew. There was a lot of being by myself, a lot of walking down to the quay and looking at the ducks. It was hard, though I did manage to find a small charity for estranged students that put together a Discord [instant messaging app] chat, so I spoke to quite a few people on that. When you’re estranged but life is going on as normal, you don’t notice, because everyone’s at university. But during lockdown, everyone on social media was at home with their families, walking their dog. I joked that I felt like I was in a psychological test, because I was spending so much time on my own in one room. It was extremely distressing. But it forced me to reach out to friends, and it strengthened some bonds I didn’t think I had.