My white linen graduation dress hangs limp in my closet. A set of commencement invitations rests untouched on my desk. A can of Lysol wipes sits next to my dresser. A calendar, splattered with anxious red circles marking my mother’s hospital shifts, hangs above my bed.
This is my high school senior spring.
On Sunday, I graduated from high school. I submitted my last high school papers, studied for my last AP exams, and organized the last meetings for my school clubs. I am mailing my teachers and mentors with college news and browsing through course options for my college freshman year.
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But nothing feels quite right. Instead of talking with my classmates between classes this spring, I sat in my bedroom by myself during the ten-minute passing periods. Instead of lingering after class for an extra couple of minutes, as I often did to talk with my teachers, I bolted from Zoom as soon as I could, to avoid the awkward feeling of talking through a screen. Instead of picking out shoes to go with my prom dress, I chose material for homemade face masks.
My graduation ceremony was canceled, but the loss I feel is less about the specific event than about the important rite of passage that closes one part of life and begins another. Senior spring felt like an endless stream of Sundays, days stuck between a new week and an old one. Graduation, along with all the ceremonies that come with it, is meant to commemorate our achievements in high school and carry each of my classmates and me from childhood to adulthood. Now I am crossing that bridge alone.
I try to catch myself, though, when I start to complain. I know it is a privilege to stay home. My family does not have to live from paycheck to paycheck; we can make our monthly payments; and our refrigerator stays full. I know, too, that many significant moments in life do not have closure. I suppose that for me, and for the rest of the seniors across the globe, the end of high school is now atop that list.
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Even so, I believe we can find some measure of closure — and even opportunity — in this period of uncertainty. The beginning of the pandemic marks the end of an era. In its wake, health care systems can no longer ignore social disparities. Geopolitics can no longer come before public health and safety. Economic inequality can no longer remain the status quo.
This kind of closure is not something to commemorate, like one’s childhood or high school years, but we can certainly face the adversity that it poses head-on. Perhaps we can even embrace this pandemic as an opportunity to change our adult world for the better. Like World War II for my grandparents and Vietnam for my uncle, what we make of life afterwards will be my generation’s challenge.
Isabelle Halsey is a member of the Loomis Chaffee School class of 2020.