Stage 3:
Bargaining Struggling to Find Meaning / Reaching Out to Others / Telling One’s Story Our understanding of “normal” was tearing apart at the seams. While we struggled to adapt academically, we yearned for anything that would make us feel stable and secure. We leaned into angsty anthems from our youth — cue Paramore’s “Riot!” album on repeat — when the world felt too loud. And when we just needed a mind-numbing distraction, we dove into shows like “Tiger King” that drowned out the world and took us far away from our eerie reality. We told ourselves that things would be back to normal by fall. But as the next semester approached and the coronavirus raged on, some of us had a hard decision to make: Come back to campus and risk getting sick, or continue to learn from home through our laptops— or put a pause on our education altogether. Our childhood bedrooms doubled as dysfunctional home offices. Our dorm rooms and apartments became our “bubbles.” On campus, we tried to forget the constant threat of being sent home, reminding ourselves that we were lucky to be back. We had distanced picnics and ate paninis from Lola’s on the green, took masked walks along the river at sunset, and went on hikes in Highland, N.Y. with a newfound appreciation for nature. The virus infected every aspect of our lives, but we were determined to get creative, making the most of what we still had.
Stage 4:
Depression
Overwhelmed / Helplessness / Hostility / Flight
Once we returned home for winter break, to places where the air still felt thick with the experience of lockdown, our days were again spent staring at screens.We tried to stay creative, but the pain of disconnection was constant. We downloaded dating apps like Hinge, but quickly realized that every conversation “hinged” on the topic of coronavirus. We texted friends and Zoomed each other fromafar, but nothing came close to the face to face connection we craved. The holiday season felt hollow, and mostly reminded us that we hadn’t hugged our relatives since last Thanksgiving, last Hanukkah, last year. The gifts under the Christmas tree almost seemed to mock us, because the things we really wanted — like late-night Uber rides and laughter at crowded local diner dives — didn’t fit in our stockings or within CDC guidelines. Our schedules felt increasingly empty as the activities we loved got crossed off of our calendars one by one — and we began to feel empty too. Eventually, we realized we had to force ourselves out of a darkness that we’d grown too comfortable in. We had to start thinking about the “What-ifs?” as future opportunities. Despite the bleak year we’d had, it had given us plenty of time to reflect and reimagine. We’d had a chance to think hard about what we really wanted in life, what kind of people we wanted to become.
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Vol. VIII
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