I won the lottery last week. Despite two vaccinations last spring and what feels like an eternity of relentless caution, I tested positive for COVID-19. Whoopee.

At least I pulled the luck of the draw in terms of symptom severity. Nothing surpassed the level of a particularly wicked cold, and I recovered very quickly. Judging by the time frame, I wouldn’t have been contagious for my comrades in Chicago, and when I learned of my ailment I was already back from my glorious weekend of concert attending there and keeping my mask up full time for school. My school hasn’t experienced any COVID case spike since my return as well. Not all is bad under quarantine.

In the meantime, I was forced to do my schoolwork online, giving me unwelcome flashbacks to last year. While getting back into the groove was easier than I expected, it was hard being separated from my other activities. As horrible as communicating with other people can be, once you’ve assimilated into society to some degree, you can’t take it out of you easily. Having human interaction stripped from you after getting used to it—and sometimes even enjoying it—does absolute wonders for one’s mental health. The friendships I forged over the past year or so have become invaluable to my current experience. There’s something strangely special about knowing you’ve left reverberations in other people’s lives. When those people make your own life worth living, stepping away bores a hole in you. It’s strange being aware of your own existence in this way, but it’s also eye opening. And ache inducing.

But at least I get to go back to what’s as close as I can get to the life I want to live. It could have been worse. I could have not believed that COVID-19 was a serious threat at all. I could have been without a vaccination and open to a world of pain worthy of a primetime-traumatize shock story. I could have signed my life over to some bile-spewing pundit and brainlessly ingested discredited animal medication as “protection” because he told me to. I could have been an idiot. At least I’m not that.