This year has been hard on everyone. It has taken a toll on our health, both physical and mental, and has forced us to deal with circumstances that we thought were relegated to the 1800s. I do not want this piece to be filled with ‘woe is me’, but rather a little insight into what thousands of other teenagers my age may have felt throughout the year.
Year 12 is usually spent with close friends – but not this year.Credit:Jason South
It felt unfair. Unfair, that such a satisfyingly sounding year, ‘The Class of 2020’, could be such a drag. To miss out on dressing up at carnivals, miss out on going to formal and valedictory, miss out on celebrating numerous 18ths, to even miss out on sitting next to our mates in class while we attempt to grasp some kind of knowledge, despite our laughing fits.
So, as you can imagine, when we are asked to stay home all day, attend school via logging on to our laptops and being told to learn and absorb information through staring at a screen, motivation sinks to an all-time low. There were times when I would not even leave my bed the entire day. I would log on to class and have a little snooze throughout the entirety of it. I would give myself an absurd number of breaks, because I “deserved it” and even paid way too much for blue-light glasses to combat the time I was spending staring at a screen. It was not the year 12 that any of us had imagined.
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For the past 13 years, we had become accustomed to schedule and predictability. However, in our final, most imperative year, uncertainty and disruption was what we faced instead. Being informed only a few days prior that we were going into lockdown and attending school online, to being granted some joy that we were back on site and then abruptly returning online, the familiarity of bells ringing and students rushing to get to their next class had been thrown out the window.
Even in our last term, a sense of relief rushing in that we could finish school face-to-face, only to realise that it was all coming to an end soon, just as we were only just beginning to get to know our teachers and spend quality time with our friends, honestly created an atmosphere of disappointment and sadness.
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Yet, in spite of this, I did thoroughly enjoy the freedom to go to the bathroom whenever I pleased and having the opportunity to make and eat some of the best lunches that I have ever indulged in. We found new, innovative ways to keep in touch, whether it be group Facetime calls and using a new app, ‘Houseparty’, or even sending each other funny TikToks.
It has been a tough year, but I would like to think we have all grown from it. Learning things about ourselves we hadn’t realised before and understanding that there is a strong sense of resilience and strength in us all.
