2020 was a year that took a lot from us. As much as we all wished the problems that arose in 2020 would go away January 1, they didn’t.

If anything, some would say things got worse. Covid cases increased and restrictions stayed in place. After the holidays, many of us still feel the ever growing negativity, loneliness, and even depression.  

Last year only served to highlight how important our mental health  is; not only does it affect our everyday life, it also affects our goals and our grades.

Without the in-person emotional and educational support from friends, many students find ourselves not caring much about completing assignments or paying attention in class.

What little motivation we had to stay focused is now gone and the lack of in-person group work makes many of us feel isolated from our classmates.

This is especially disheartening for Seniors–instead of celebrating being the Class of 2021 together, we feel more disconnected from each other than ever before.

For many of us, the reality of what we’re missing out on this year is finally setting in.

Losing our Senior trips, both of our opportunities to go to Prom, and graduation has been heartbreaking, to say the least.

The hardest pill to swallow is the fact that many of us spent a lot of time focusing on our grades and extracurriculars with the promise that we would have our whole Senior year to celebrate our achievements. Now that promise is as good as gone.

2020 changed many things in our society, but the switch to online school is perhaps the one change that has had the most negative effect on the most students.

Between glitchy zoom calls, slow wifi, and dozens of distractions, many students haven’t been able to keep up with their load of classwork and readings.

Many of the students that do manage to keep up with the classwork haven’t been able to retain all the information that is being taught so quickly.
It leaves many of us nostalgic for the times we would get up at 6 or 7 in the morning every day to go to school and rush through crowds of students moving from class to class.

Amidst all the isolation many teens have been on their phones more often than before because it’s our only way to talk to our friends and try to regain a sense of normalcy.

But many parents aren’t happy about this. They feel like they are losing their children to their phones, not realizing we are losing our friends and the day-to-day life that we know. It is a difficult situation that has unfortunately added fuel to the miserable fire that is 2020.

Everything we have born witness to in 2020 is history, memories we will tell our children and grandchildren.

But being in the midst of this surreal period of history, we wish it had never happened.

At the end of the day, we don’t need to tell you how bad things are (even though we kinda just did).  

With Covid going on for as long as it has, and despite there being a clear light at the end of the tunnel with vaccinations occurring as we speak, it’s natural to think there’s no bouncing back from this depressing and terrible period.  

However, let’s not forget that this will all be seen as a small blip in our long and unabridged journey through life.  

Keep in mind, this has been going on for less than a year; although it seems like an eternity, this lonely and dark time has given us a chance to reflect on the current state of the world and what kind of future we truly desire for ourselves, and for each other.

You’ve probably heard people express their yearning to “go back to normal.”  And while in a sense we’ll go back, we disagree with that term.  
Coming out of this pandemic, we need to all collectively work to create a better, healthier, happier, and more hopeful future for ourselves and the following generations to come.  

Think of how it will feel attending that first post-pandemic concert, party, family gathering, whatever it may be.

Remain optimistic that day will come (and hopefully sooner rather than later), but let’s also remember what wasn’t working before this crisis.  
Let’s work together to create a future that we can truly be excited about returning to, which will reveal a light at the end of the tunnel that we can all get on board with.  

It’ll all be worth it, that we’re sure of.

This article was written by the Knightlife staff.