News & Articles

COVID Reflections - Caleb

May 14th, 2020

Originally posted May 14, 2020

"This is not ideal." It’s a phrase we have all become used to lately as we watch our world slip into a tunnel that oftentimes looks like it has no visible light at the end. We have all heard the saying, "You never know what you had until it’s gone." I think now that we’re on Zoom, we realize what we had before. We had fallen into a pattern of life that was too good to go unappreciated—we needed something to wake us up. This does not need to be said because it is written on the faces of my fellow classmates and me. Our days are up and down. We have long days, short days, quiet days, loud days, motivated days, and lethargic days. Through all of this, our teachers have been very understanding. You can tell that they care because they can’t hide it. One of my teachers even cried a little just because we haven’t all been together in so long. They watch us go through these mountains and valleys and they offer a virtual helping hand, the very best they can do at the moment.

Pacifica prepared us for this moment by equipping us with a concrete way of thinking, formed by countless conversations in classrooms and at lunch tables. Now we’re sitting at lunch with our families and having conversations with them. We’re able to apply the knowledge we gained into real-world experiences by trying to manage conflict within our homes and having civil discussions at our dinner tables.

My friends, teachers, and family members—we all want to see each other in person just one more time. There is no way to sugarcoat this newfound reality where we stay isolated in our homes. It truly "isn’t ideal." At the moment, we will make do, knowing that whenever the time comes for us to reunite, we will do it consciously with the knowledge that the everyday mundane routine, what we thought of as a constant, can, in fact, fall out from under us. In those moments, we will appreciate every day fully for what it is.