By Arohi Gadagkar
I just want to take a moment to address the variety of emotions we may all be feeling. Frustration, confusion, sadness, excitement, and hope—sometimes we feel one of them, and sometimes we feel all of them. It’s completely normal, and it’s absolutely valid. Yes, we are in the midst of a global pandemic. Yes, shelter-in-place is undoubtedly better than the alternative. But despite all that, we are allowed to mourn the traditions that are no longer on our calendars. We are allowed to mourn the fact that we unknowingly had our last day of in-person high school classes on March 12. We are allowed to mourn our inability to celebrate four years of hard work alongside our best friends. Everything we’ve known, from our friends and family to our daily routine, is gone (or at least six feet away). It’s a strange time, and there is no concrete way to process all this uncertainty.
That being said, we can still search for the silver lining. We can appreciate the outpour of love and support from our Westmont community, the teachers, admin, and parents working incredibly hard to piece together some sort of second-semester senior year amid all the chaos. We have an amazing ASB class going to great lengths to give spring sport seniors their long-awaited senior night, creating substitute spirit weeks, and highlighting seniors’ college decisions. We’ve always complained that there wasn’t enough time in the world, and now, there’s nothing but time. So, start a project, indulge yourself in some self-care, or catch up with a friend. And over these phone calls, where I’m sure a futuristic conversation beginning with, “When all of this is over…,” is bound to occur, we can best believe that those days will be some of the happiest days we have ever known: every second treasured, never taking anything for granted.
Class of 2020, take all the time you need to process and grieve how this second semester turned out. But just know, when all of this is over, we will celebrate, and everything will be okay.