LITTLE BY LITTLE, I LOST INTEREST IN THE THINGS I LOVED

We were one of the last schools in the county to close, the only children still left sitting in classrooms while the infamous virus was getting to work. Outside of campus, the world was breaking, and the news was telling people what they needed to be afraid of. But the tired AP chemistry students that had gone weeks without sleep, and the anxious English students with three papers to write — they were cheering.

In every classroom, students were dancing on their desks, and in the hallways, freshmen were howling. We celebrated, as if campus closing down somehow meant we’d finally be free from the burdens of school. That we’d no longer be gasping for air above the rising waters. After all that, I can’t help but wonder if the people living in Pompeii were cheering too, when the ashes of Mount Vesuvius buried them alive.

Learning from home. A year ago, it all sounded like such a warm and pleasant idea. It excited me thinking I could watch TV in between classes on the couch, or how I now possessed the dangerous ability to make as many cups of coffee as I wanted, rather than settling for a single cup I’d chosen to bring with me to school. I hated the way that coffee would grow cold and bitter, always leaving a bad taste in my mouth throughout the day. The coffee was unpleasant, and everything about the world outside was uncomfortable.

Yet with every old comfort and spoil at my fingertips, it felt as if my life was being drained of its color. Maybe it was the numbing warmth of my bedsheets that was making me hazy, but the slow and tired feeling of every day spent trapped behind the walls of my own home was taking away my desire to do anything. I felt detached from the world outside. I was simply watching the days pass me by, sitting in spots where the scorching heat would hit my face. I stayed there for hours with the urge to move but lack of will to stand. It was a warm and worthless kind of existence.

The burning passion I had for the things I loved was dying out, and little by little I watched myself lose interest in all the things I once claimed to have loved to death. When my love for writing disappeared, I found myself desperately sitting in front of my old work desk, begging for words to reappear on my pages. When every day looked the same, it all felt useless. Everything about my current existence was stale, bland and tasteless.

Pressures from school only seemed to make it worse. Work piled at my feet, and the assignments I used to burn through without a second thought were being marked red: missing, incomplete. I couldn’t see beyond the sea of emails and missing assignments, and I was going to drown in it.

Still, my head was kept above the rising waters. The paralyzing drowsiness of quarantine made the unorthodox things outside my bedroom window that much more interesting. That much more desirable. That much more the real taste of freedom that I had been craving on the day our campus closed.

I had a burning desire for the outside like never before, in all of its unpleasantries and discomforts, because they were what made me feel alive. I wanted to be uncomfortable. I wanted to stand in the freezing rain and shiver. I wanted to drag my body through the scalding heat of a summer evening, sweaty and tired but most definitely alive. Everything about the outside world was uncomfortable, but I think I’d rather get a taste of the world and all its unpleasantries then choke on the numbing warmth of my bedsheets.

Doing group work was annoying, and getting groceries was a bother, but they gave life a flavor that I so desperately needed in my stale, bland existence. One I realized I could not live without. One that gave me a reason to try in school, to put effort into things, and to get out of bed and decide that I wanted to live.

I still have a year of high school left to go, and I really do hope that I’ll be able to take all my classes back on campus my senior year. Even if it means settling for that single cup of coffee that would grow cold and bitter, because I’ll relish that awful taste.

I wanted to be uncomfortable. I wanted to stand in the freezing rain and shiver. I wanted to drag my body through the scalding heat of a summer evening, sweaty and tired but most definitely alive.