Day 343 of (Physical) Isolation

Hello again! I’m back, with a post(poned) that has been written in moments stolen from pressing assignments and uninteresting Zoom classes. Here, in mid-February, it feels like we’re on the cusp of something - possibly spring (the case in my temperate Southern state); hopefully the acceleration of vaccinations. I’ve looked back through my posts, and there it flashes time and time again - “hopefully.” It’s been almost a year of hoping and surviving and enjoying what we can, but in the next few months, it might finally be time to live again.

We’re eleven months into this pandemic, and the sequel to the last installment of my in-person school time has finally arrived. Looking back on the last time I was here, in the golden September photos of my friends and I looking so much younger, it’s hard to believe we haven’t been away for a whole year. Before moving in, I’d written a long metaphor about returning to Narnia, where children function as adults and no time passes within the separate world’s confines without youths to give it life. I’ve realized that isn’t true - things have changed, and as necessitated by the pandemic, I haven’t returned to the same friends I met in the fall.

I’d been worried about the social reshuffling of being on-campus with only two others from my old friend group, and while drafting this, I did end up with a few mopey sentences about my momentary, semi-failed attempts to join already-formed groups. I’m glad I waited for a break in the rain before writing, because all it took was one sunny day to bring us all out of our rooms like sweatshirt-clad worms on the sidewalk after a storm. The spontaneous interactions necessitated by math troubles or particularly extroverted friends have reminded me how much I enjoy others, and even without many of my favorite people, there are so many new connections to explore.

I’m currently undecided on whether Zoom classes have helped or hindered my ability to socialize. After only perceiving someone through how they appear during class, it can be odd to meet them in-person and see how they fit into social groups. I’ve been happily surprised that some of the smartest, most insightful people in my first semester classes are surprisingly chill and unintimidating, while some of the most outgoing people on campus barely turn their cameras on or speak at all in class. Becoming acquainted with someone’s Zoom or social media presence prior to meeting them is disorienting, and it’s reminding me to withhold my judgement, since you can’t really know someone without the opportunity to meet them.

Having so little time on campus imbues every moment here with urgency, and the mere fact that two weeks have already passed has, in my worst moments, been sending me spiraling into a cloud of the knowledge that my time here is constantly running out and that, for at least the next four-ish months, life won’t be any better than it is right now. Some days more than others, I’m crushed under the weight of the pressure to make the most of every moment I’m alone in my room or trying to do schoolwork or in a conversation where I feel like I’m failing to adequately entertain. Hours potentially dedicated to working disappear into long conversations, causing an odd mix of joy and foreboding of the unrelenting waves of deadlines, some self-imposed, that never stop approaching. Time is finally passing notably again, now that I’m gifted with the opportunity of on-campus antics that give me something, outside of the confines of my parent’s home, to happily remember.

Unexpectedly, for the first time since March, public school students will return to in-person classes. It happened so fast - in about a week, a bill was passed through both chambers of my state’s government, and now all public schools in my county are being forced to reopen in April. With students given the decision of whether or not to return to school, many are hesitant - Chloe, a senior, said she’ll probably go back because it’s her last year of high school, but “their plan sounds really complicated and [my school] is just not built for safe Covid procedures.” My friend Eva was planning to go back, but after receiving an email from her AP Biology teacher that in-person students wouldn’t be able to attend the class, she’s less sure: “I wish this was communicated better, and I feel for my teachers, but students are being caught in the crossfire here and asked to make a decision without all the information we need.” I should also note that most of the responses I received were brief and synonymous with “absolutely not”, as there are considerable doubts regarding the degree of safety with which a federally-funded school system could open. This close to the finish line of the pandemic, safety is still paramount.

With the recency of corporate capitalism’s annual reminder of one’s romantic partner or lack of one (I speak of Valentine’s day), I’ve been thinking about how my peers and I have been forced to either postpone adolescent milestones or adapt them to our odd circumstances. Most teenagers can’t easily meet new people, and any new relationship must be carefully considered, as the spectre of human touch now carries with it the fear of viral contamination and public shaming. Oddly enough, discouraging us from rushing into romantic relationships often has pleasant results - of all my friends who’ve started dating in the past year, most are in relationships with people who they truly get along with. I’m reminded of popular Regency-era dramas, where any courtship is filled with conversations pointed at latent possibilities. A semi-accidental brush of one’s ungloved hand with another’s or an awkwardly-long period spent memorizing the details of their eyes, coupled with that overwhelming feeling that you should hug them, but you can’t, so you sit on your hands - by necessity, this is a period of either pining or maximizing one’s time with significant others who might live hours away from them. I hope that my newfound appreciation for human touch continues, even when it would no longer be so dangerous.

Vaccine news is currently confusingly varied, but cautiously encouraging. Estimates of when the general public will be vaccinated have, as I predicted, been pushed back - my parents disparage me for my lack of hope, but I guess I was right to ignore any sign that the summer might be a triumphant celebration of warm weather and normal life and instead hunker down and pray for the fall. There is some pleasant news - my state will begin to vaccinate teachers before the end of this month, and both state and federal governments seem to be prioritizing the return of in-person schooling. At times, the idea that this will end, ever, feels surreal. The signs in my school’s cafeteria, pleading in hand-markered letters that we leave four chairs to a table, serve as a dim echo of the past and the future, of life without plexiglass dividers - both an epitaph and a promise.

It’s two days after Ash Wednesday, and while I hesitate at the idea of spending too much time on a religious parallel in the fears of drawing fire from either side of a current school Facebook debate, it’s funny that we’re probably, hopefully, entering the last truly dark period of the pandemic (especially for my friends at home) as the winter ends. I’m definitely more inclined to come away from the past few weeks with a positive takeaway here, back here in my room at school overlooking veinlike trees and smiling at the thought of unexpected friends and the promise of the next few weeks. I don’t have any pseudo-intellectual way to end this post that doesn’t make me feel like a teenage boy who wears peacoats and reads a bit too much philosophy, so I’ll just end with another set of hopefullys: We’re in the final stretch. We can do this.

XOXO, Quaranteen