Hi, how are you? It’s been a while…
It’s been a while! All of my assignments are in and marked and I have officially finished my three years of university. There’ll be no graduation next month and there was no triumphant end to what have probably been some of the hardest three years of my life but that’s okay. So much time has passed since I last was a ‘proper’ student and in some ways I think I really finished when I had my last day and had to leave all those months ago. It’s been 90 days today since lockdown began for me, and I can’t even imagine going back to the old way I lived now.
I think I never processed how quickly and dramatically my life changed due to Covid-19 so finishing my degree was an odd and slightly insignificant realisation that that stage of my life was over with an unceremonious click and slightly longer run along the canal that night as a treat. Even with all the years of building up to this summer I never anticipated something like this. In a sense, I dont think I have ever felt as lost as I have in these months. Before the pandemic, I generally happier than I’d ever been, I was where I wanted to be. I think all of the uncertainty meant that for a while, I could only really see the past and the way things used to be was the only thing I felt I could cling on to.
My partner had the virus in the first month of lockdown and for a long time it was honestly all just too much to talk about, I think watching them go through that from afar has also permanently changed me. It’s made me so cynical of the world, of life, of myself most of all. I was someone who so appreciated the little things and even they got taken away overnight.
All of this being said, I know there are those that have gone though far worse things than I have in these months and even the most cursory look at the news tells me the world is also in the dark and going through great change, and change is good. Recent events have shown that even in times of isolation and darkness positive change and liberation can come out of it. We will hopefully emerge a better society after this and I am personally committed to changing my old ways to further this objective.
But to anyone out there who’s lost in all of this, you aren’t alone even if you are isolated. I’m rooting for you, and I’m hopeful that there are good times ahead for all of us.
“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” — C.S. Lewis
