Written by Tiane Davis
I was a senior in high school last year, and I was pretty much tired of my senior year as soon as it started. I suppose every other high school senior from last year would tell you they were robbed of what should have been the best year of their life, but I’m the kid that’ll tell you I wasn’t robbed at all.
To be clear, this isn’t me pretending to have a positive attitude about all of this. This is me telling you that I had come to loathe high school so much that I was content to go home and hide in my room for two weeks when the lockdown started.
Later on, when I was told the rest of my high school senior year would be canceled and that I might not have a real graduation, I honestly tried to be sad, but deep down, I was glad that it was over. It definitely came as a shock, but I had been ready for a change for so long that it came as a relief to cut it all a few months short.
It’s easy, when you’re close to the end of a certain chapter in your life, to skip over it so you can move on to the next story line. That’s how I was my senior year. I was so ready to move on that I had begun to hate every part of it. The pandemic gave me a chance to wipe out every piece of negativity I had about high school, even though I didn’t really deserve to.
Although there were plenty of exciting things I wasn’t able to do because of COVID-19, I was able to take a break from everything and focus on areas of my life that I had begun to ignore. Instead of stressing myself out over homework, exams and sports, I got the chance to focus on my spiritual and mental health. I learned to appreciate nature and music a little more. I learned how to love myself and others at a deeper level.
In retrospect, I would have loved for my senior year of high school to have played out differently, but that is how I’m sure most of us feel about 2020. For the moment, I am here, I have grown and I am grateful for where I am.
