An Open Letter by Juneve Porciello
Dear 2020, As a typical change-hating Taurus, trying to accept you for all your twists and turns was far from easy. For as long as I can remember, I have had my life planned out, down to the second. “Going with the flow” was something that I never knew how to do. At five-years-old, I was storming around the house in my mom’s Prada heels that were six sizes too big, insisting on planning my own birthday parties. Since then, I have never done anything without a plan or schedule. “Everything happens for a reason” was a foreign phrase I had no intention of learning. Fast forward to college: I was a sorority president, busy with a full class schedule, extracurriculars, a part-time job and somehow even managed to have a personal life. All aspects of my existence were thoroughly calculated and organized. Every moving part of my life, ordered and in sequence. Truly, I had no intentions of slowing down, nor did I know how… until you forced me. March 2020, the world began to murmur with rumors about the coronavirus, which didn’t seem to affect me. But what began as a temporary pause from school, work, responsibilities and daily routines soon morphed into a complete disruption of life as I knew it. I was upset about the havoc you unleashed on the prearranged plans I had thoroughly organized. I found myself back home, living in my parents’ house. Somehow, my weekend uniform transitioned from leather pants and a crop top to an oversized sweatshirt and mismatched sweatpants. Every day I woke up stuck in a cycle, reliving a never-ending Monday. The days all began to blend together; toilet paper was considered currency; bleach dyeing old clothes was the only trend that Vogue was keeping up with, and Doja Cat’s “Say So” was morphing into our new national anthem. During the week, I tried to find a quiet space somewhere in my house to attend college remotely on Zoom. Privacy was virtually impossible with a twin sister, an 100-pound dog, an Italian father, Wi-Fi that never seemed to work, and a mother who took home improvement projects to another level. Things were far from normal and definitely not following my life plan. 2020, you began to test my patience, but I was still optimistic that things would go back to normal by the start of my last year of college. Senior year had existed in my head as a time to be consumed with nights that end at 5 a.m., fleeting chances to find love across a crowded bar, running around a campus bustling with students and getting the full “senior experience.” Yet when I returned in the fall, I found my beloved campus had lost its luster, its sense of community and the electricity that made it feel like home. This was our last chance to have fun before grown-up reality set in. It is unsettling to think that I may not even walk across the graduation stage; I can’t help but feel numb, almost as if I am not graduating at all. 2020, you were relentless. You forced me to feel pain, growth and all the moments inbetween.
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Vol. VIII
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