For a senior, it’s hard to see the bright side of quarantine. 

When school was first cancelled for two weeks in March, I thought this was going to be an extended snow day. We’d have virtual learning, write a couple of Spanish journals about our homeschooling, and then return unchanged. Boy was I wrong. Our springtime Snowmageddon snowballed into a horrific pandemic, uprooting countless families and lifestyles across the globe. 

Today, whatever day it is anyway, I feel like Tom Hanks’ Chuck Noland in Castaway. Time is irrelevant, sports are gone (come back, baseball!), and Zoom’s Swiss cheese security turned the app from quarantine’s silver lining to another Internet time bomb. Everything is cancelled and we will be attending Marist School’s take on DeVry University until the school year ends.

Thousands have lost everything to this crisis, so the utter tragedy of sitting in front of a Lenovo next to a bag of Doritos for a whole school term pales in comparison to what’s happening in the real world. But inside the small bubble in which we live, losing this term is, no bones about it, just plain sad. We were looking forward to sitting in beach chairs while Hunter Price ‘20 jams out during St. Peter Chanel Day. We were looking forward to jumping into the mosh pit at the Sadie Hawkins Dance, and we even miss the dread of getting trampled in that same crowd of sweat and song. It’s very easy to be negative during these times; as you can see from this article, I’ve fallen into the pit of nostalgic pessimism pretty often. 

However, this quarantine has brought a newfound sense of appreciation for the little things. One of the songs that has repeatedly shown up on my Spotify during this time is Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” performed by Counting Crows. The song and our quarantine experiences can be summed up in these three lines:

Don’t it always seem to go

That you don’t know what you got

Til it’s gone.

I never thought I would miss the backup on Harts Mill Road at 7:50 on a Monday morning, or that I would miss the five minute scramble from third floor Chanel to third floor Ivy. I never knew I would miss the musty dungeon or the way the hallways feel underneath my feet. But I do. Thanks to this exile of sorts, I now recognize and appreciate these minute details, and for a senior like me, this period has been one to reflect on what I cherish about Marist School in the short month and a half before I leave 3790 Ashford Dunwoody Road. 

So when I return to school for the baccalaureate Mass and graduation– whenever they happen– I’m going to hug my friends a little tighter and walk with a conscious spring in my step because now I know how truly special– and fleeting– the little moments are. 

As we fight cabin fever together, let your nostalgia fuel your resolve to appreciate each and every facet of normal life. This crisis won’t last forever, and once life somewhat resembles normalcy, we’ll soon make more memories and share new experiences. And each memory will be more vivid than the last because we’ll know what we’ve got before it’s gone.