A little over a year ago when the COVID-19 pandemic took over the world, I would have never imagined that it would still be something that is so prominent in daily life. I was a 2nd semester sophomore, at the height of a season of finding myself when the pandemic sent me home to my high school bedroom. While I love hanging out with my mom as much as the next 20 year old, I felt confused about what was going to be next and proceeded to spend the next 10 months cooped up in that bedroom. COVID-19 continues to fill life with uncertainty but one thing is for sure, I am weeks away from finishing my junior year and hopeful of a senior year with more “normalcy.”
Now, as the second full online semester comes to an end and some of my friends are graduating, I’m facing the status of a rising senior, and I can’t help but start to feel a bit nostalgic. Over a year has been lost, due to COVID-19, which took away the opportunity to live in the city of San Francisco and now, senior year approaches, this is the final time to get in as much of San Francisco as possible. There is a lot of hope of reuniting with my friends and classmates next semester for a somewhat in person experience. I feel excited to see my old friends, sad knowing some of my friends won’t be returning, and anxious to meet the numerous people who I have met through Zoom University. I never thought I would say this, but I have a whole circle of online friends that I’m excited to finally meet.
Despite this overwhelming excitement and hope I have for this return to some type of normalcy, I cannot help but notice those pangs of nostalgia. Although it is exciting to return, my mind is overwhelmed with graduate school applications, GRE study techniques and checklist after checklist of the things I need to do before I graduate. As of this month, graduation is a year away. So, in a little over a year, I will pack up the life I have made for myself here in San Francisco and move who knows where to another adventure. While that is exciting in and of itself, it also brings a wave of sadness. There are times when I have loathed this city but, despite my self-proclamation of being more of a suburb girl than a city girl, I love San Francisco and I will miss it when I leave.
As this semester comes to an end, and I leave to return yet again to my high school bedroom, this time to complete an internship in my future field, I can’t help but feel as though this marks the beginning of the end. Now, as the new semester approaches, I will have my last first day of undergraduate, my last winter break, my last SFO airport visit as a USF student, and a handful of other lasts. There is a possibility that this will be my last summer break and that when I graduate in a year I will, within the week, begin my masters or doctorate program. While the possibility of my future is exhilarating, it is also sad to think that this will be the end.
Here’s to a year of Covid, to finally reuniting with friends new and old, to a new normal, and to the beginning of the end.