Julia Park: Corona Chronicle 1

At the beginning of September 2019, I made a promise to myself. I wanted to try the best I could to spend my last year in high school living in the present. Since watching the last three years of my life go by so quickly, I didn’t want to spend any more of my time worrying about the future or dwelling over the past.

As all seniors know, senior year is a weird dichotomy between preparing to move on to adulthood and languishing in what is left of our youth. To me, living in the present was finding the small space in between these two feelings.

Perhaps the downside of not looking far enough into the future was that I didn’t see any of this coming. As one week of spring break turned into two weeks then four, my senior year began to look completely different from the absence of prom, Senior Follies, Senior Trip, and graduation among other events.

Despite these circumstances, my promise to myself still stands as this is not the end yet. In place of dancing at prom or practicing for Senior Follies, living in the present now means video chatting with my friends or trying new recipes with my family. This new meaning is as important and special to me as the former would have been.

Alas, as my time as a high schooler comes to an end, I find closure within making the most of what is left instead of grieving over the things that didn’t happen.