It’s crazy to think that approximately this time last year, I was stressing over my Common Application and studying for my final ACT attempt, with no inkling of everything that was going to happen in just a few months. OK yeah, it’s probably cliche to mention the absurdity of the virus by now, but it really is crazy how much things have changed in such a short period of time. If you had asked BC (“before Corona”) me what my plans for college were, I would have told you that I was going to go to an out-of-state college far away from my midwestern suburban bubble so that I could “experience what the world had to offer.” First of all, cringe, and second of all obviously that’s not what ended up happening considering my house is a 30 minute drive from campus and I go home every other weekend, but I do think the irony of it all is kind of funny.
As a class of 2020 graduate, my senior year of high school ended quite uneventfully, with a live-streamed “graduation” and a diploma picked up out of the back parking lot of my school. It’s safe to say it was pretty disappointing and that I did not receive the closure I expected. I think it might have been because of the fact that ever since I was a little kid, I had been dreaming about the day that I got to have my freeze frame moment, the one where I throw my cap into the air and cheer along with my peers as we celebrate the fact that we made it. Hearing my name mispronounced over a video stream while sitting in front of a computer in my room just didn’t feel the same.
Maybe it’s this lack of “closure” that makes me feel like this, but I honestly feel like I’m still in high school. I’ve almost called my professors by the wrong titles multiple times, I don’t know where to sit at lunch, and if I’m being completely honest, I don’t really have any idea what I am doing. I just kind of do what I see other people doing, and so far, it’s worked, so I think I’m going to continue using that strategy. My theory is that it has something to do with the fact that I went from having someone else make the decisions in my life for the past eighteen years to becoming the person that has to make the decisions, so now I don’t really know how to do it. A freshly minted adult, and I still make my dad schedule my doctors appointments. Ha!
And can we talk about making friends? How the hell does everyone know each other already? I really thought I was going to have my own pitch-perfect-esque squad (minus the acapella because I can’t sing) in college but the sad reality of the situation is that I know like five people. I go from my classes to the dining hall to my dorm, and on occasion I’ll go to the odd club meeting or go study in the library or work out in the rec center. Hopefully this situation is unique to the conditions we have to live under at the moment (AKA coronavirus restrictions) and not how it actually is all the time, because I don’t know if my ENFP self can take any more of this.
Reading this article back I kind of hate it and love it at the same time. I hate it because I feel like I sound like a 29-year-old Buzzfeed writer trying to relate to the “hip teens” or something, but I love it because I’m hoping other people who relate to it will be able to read it and feel less alone (who knew loneliness was one of the symptoms of the virus?)