As COVID-19 cases in Illinois rise and fall, mask mandates and regulations have been changing constantly. I have chosen to wear my mask throughout all of these changes. My reason for doing so is that I want to keep myself, my family and the other people around me as safe as possible.

Many of my friends continue to wear a mask due to the fact that some of their family members are immunocompromised. They do not want to put their family or friends at risk. When I am far away from people in classes, left to my own devices, or with people I socialize with regularly, I am comfortable with taking my mask down, as long as they are as well. In larger crowds, like during passing periods, I make sure to put it up because of how close together everybody is. This is especially true with people traveling out of state or out of the country, I am not yet comfortable with unmasking around them.

Wearing a mask has become such a normalcy for me when in public buildings or big crowds it feels odd to not have one on. It is like my face is missing something. Many students here at school have also mentioned online how wearing a mask hides the funny faces they would make throughout the day and how not wearing one would reveal it. If I took off my mask, I feel like I would be too conscious of what my face looks like.

A common counter-argument that many people have against masks is that it is hard to breathe in them. I played my entire senior volleyball season and most of indoor and outdoor track season with my mask on, and I did struggle, however, it wasn’t to the point where it was impossible to wear it. Keeping it on during volleyball was much easier than track since I wasn’t continually out of breath the entire time. This was during the required mandate and my beliefs were that if I could wear it properly during a game, other people should be capable of wearing it in classrooms and in the hallways without being out of breath. But of course, everyone has different preferences and reasons as to why they are or are not wearing a mask.

Keeping my mask on to make others and myself feel safe and comfortable is well worth wearing one.