March 13, 2020, was a day that altered many lives, including my own. That Friday was the last “normal” day before the pandemic would change everything around me. We started the pandemic with the idea that things would be over in a matter of weeks. Those weeks have turned into months and years, with no end in sight. Hearing the phrase, “the new normal” makes me feel helpless, and the crushing claustrophobia of the never ending pandemic is utterly demoralizing. 

The pandemic stripped parts of humanity away and built back an unfamiliar world for many. For teenagers, I feel as if the last of my childhood has been stolen from me. 

Instead of the slow burn of no longer being a child, the pandemic created an abrupt stop. When the pandemic began, I felt as if I had time, I was only a child. I didn’t need to worry about the impending doom that is becoming an adult. I was carefree and had plenty of time between those big decisions to make about who I wanted to be. The pandemic destroyed any last bit of that. The only thing left are memories of a time that has long since passed and the awareness that those times might never come back in any shape or form. 

The hard hitting reality that senior year brings and the light speed at which it occurred have also caused me pain. One second I was a little sophomore, ready to have fun in high school. The next, I was in my AP Lit class writing college applications. A big red timer has appeared in my head counting down the seconds until I have to grow up and become an adult. 

The pandemic has served as a toxic relationship for me and many, it becomes better and better, there seems to be a finish line in sight, and then  all of a sudden hope is stripped away by googling “Covid-19 Cases” and seeing that blue mountain range of doom rising higher and higher. The worst part about Covid stealing the last of my childhood is the loose ends that have been left, and the broken pieces that I now have to pick up. Those almost two years could have helped me develop myself; I could have become who I always was going to be. Instead I was thrown off course by something I can’t control. I feel like I am trapped in a mind that is still stuck at fifteen, yet I have to make decisions and be in a world that is more mature than I am. 

The pandemic may be a bitter subject for me and for many. I hope that we can move through this and onto better things. Things will always work out no matter what. Maybe one day we can look back at the fragmented pieces the pandemic left us and be proud of ourselves for how we put ourselves back together just like humpty dumpty.