Day 176 of (Physical) Isolation

Although the Coronavirus pandemic has disrupted our lives for almost half a year, the United States continues to struggle through various phases of reopening. Still, we perform the six-foot shuffle in grocery stores, do double-takes at seeing the bottom half of someone's face, and contort ourselves into uncomfortable positions in hopes of looking our best on Zoom. Most students are now solidly back into the swing of things at school, whether it be online or hybrid, and the approaching election season provides some hope for a nationwide mask mandate. Overseas, many of the nations of the world that are more compliant than the US have reopened, and the Oxford vaccine is currently undergoing "promising" clinical trials, so although the end of this pandemic might seem unthinkable, it certainly exists somewhere in the future. Since classes have started, I've taken a break from the news and am focusing on a more personal-narrative-type approach this week, so let me know what you think in the comments!

After living through two weeks at a boarding school known for its rigor, my hopes for the upcoming year have been made slightly more realistic. Of the class periods I attend every week, most are online, sometimes providing me with the opportunity to not pay quite as much attention as I should and instead Zoom-chat a friend about how confused I am or how silly they look on-camera. The workload varies based on who you are and what classes you're taking, but for me, it's manageable and feels slightly more valuable. Being in-person for now, I'm getting to attend lab blocks in an actual classroom, which are my favorite class periods of the week because it's easier for me to focus and see the science being done, while my friends in Cohort B are having to do complicated labs on their own at home or learn through videos. I also definitely feel the rigor when I listen to my classmates and how quickly some of them understand a genetics concept, recall a random math detail, or come up with a really interesting argument in history. Being your average nerdy, hardworking kid, I sometimes feel insignificant next to my friends who've already started their own nonprofits, can bust codes within minutes, or have learned all of the math our STEM-focused school teaches only two weeks into the year, but I also finally feel challenged to become that extraordinary myself.

I'm happy to report that my school has passed the incubation period without any serious outbreaks. One third of us, including me, were tested recently, and every single student's test came back negative. I have a feeling my school might serve as a case study for how to deal with the virus with a relatively small on-campus population. While there have been instances of people being sent home, most of these were because of how careful and strict the administration is being about contact tracing and catching those who display symptoms, and I really do feel safe here, surrounded by hand-sanitizer stations and people wearing masks.

To be honest, the only time I don't feel safe is when I'm outside and the people I'm with start getting just a bit too close to each other. Social distancing when you're socially awkward is a tricky can of worms, since every person here is deciding for themselves how strictly they're going to follow the guidelines when no administrators are watching, and I really don't want to be seen as a buzzkill yelling at people to social distance. I appreciate the heck out of everyone who's always doing their best to stay apart and telling others to do the same, because some people here are definitely making the dangerous assumption that none of us have the virus. The typical junior vs. senior, hall vs. hall drama between certain factions that would occur in any regular school year is being twisted by this pandemic, since no opinionated teenager likes being told what to do by someone only a year older than them or, God forbid, a year younger than them. Halfway through writing this post, actually, I went outside to socialize, witnessed a pretty striking example of this, and awkwardly tried to get the attention of some trusted seniors since I was apprehensive about yelling at seniors who I didn't even know.

For many, distancing is also difficult emotionally. A lot of us have gone from being quarantined with our families, where we were hugging someone at least a few times a day, to becoming our own tiny bubble of physical isolation. When talking about how we were feeling about distancing, my friend Heidi mentioned how weird it feels when your family visits and you can't hug them and how touch starvation is slowly creeping in. Most of us are probably feeling pretty touch-starved right now, and I, for one, am no exception. I keep dreaming of hand-holding, and I treasure the moments when a friend is handing me something and their fingers brush mine. I've also started saying, as a substitute for hugging a friend tightly, while we awkwardly stand the mandated distance apart at the door to someone's hall, "I would be hugging you right now, if there wasn't, y'know, a pandemic."

Going along with that, I'm not sure how much of this is a boarding-school thing and how much of it is a pandemic thing, but I feel closer to the friends I've made here in two weeks than I did to most of the people I attended high school with for two years. Since everyone lives on-campus and we have so much free time, the best hangouts can just happen organically (or I bother my friends via Facebook Messenger to come say hi to me, and since they're right here, they do.). After being trapped in our houses for five months, I have a feeling I'm not the only one who's a little extra happy about seeing other people my age, and since we're only here for six weeks, a lot of us (or definitely me) are trying to socialize almost-constantly. The people I'm at school with are definitely, on average, kinder than I'm used to, and I'm happily redefining myself as a social butterfly. The lack of human touch means my desire to show platonic affection is bubbling through in odd ways - I'm getting this weird urge to, when parting with my friends, say "Good night, love you!" so I'm just going to roll with that, since I really have started caring pretty deeply for people I haven't known for long at all.

Since I'm usually so happy here, when I start overthinking, I sometimes feel like my time here is my oasis, my six weeks of paradise bookended by months of drudgery. If you know me at all, I'm sure you know that I'm a very future-oriented person, and I have a tendency to, when my life is in a good place, constantly live in anticipation of looking back on the present moment and missing the way things are now. Instead of purely enjoying the moment, I flash myself forward into an approximation of my future mindset and feel this odd anticipatory sadness at knowing that I can't stop everything I'm seeing and feeling now from becoming a memory.

So, since I've been here, I've been taking pictures constantly in an attempt to preserve visually the happiness I've been feeling for the first time in months. Every beam of golden sunlight onto a secluded pond, theatrically nerdy antic of a friend, and cup of boba tea, I compress into a digital rectangle, a small kernel of happiness that will be a gift for my future self. And, like the photos I take, writing this blog has caused me to realize how important it is, at least for me, to have a record of my time, to record the ways I'm changing and the world is changing. Now that school has started, time is finally becoming linear again, and our days are filled with a welcome structure. I know that, even when I'm back at home doing distance learning in a month, I'll still have the friends I've worked to make here. Distancing is hard, but we've been doing a pretty good job at it, and hopefully we'll look back on these months as a time of greater, more creative connection.

XOXO, Quaranteen