Different. A simple but profoundly relevant word in a time when normalcy has become redundant. Returning to in-person learning has come with its fair share of strangeness (truly an understatement) but seeing other people for the first time in a year has left many students feeling self-conscious and starkly different from their early-2020 selves.
Self-image issues are far from foreign among teenagers, but for many, the period of self-growth provided by being quarantined changed their own view of themself significantly. Sophomore Rose Renner said, “I used to be so focused on how other people saw me and I just wanted to look or act a certain way to appease others…I like that I am my own person and not who I was a year ago.”
Renner elaborated that the pandemic was key to growing into herself, but not without challenges, she said “I think being more isolated for so long allowed me to learn more about myself without fearing judgment from others. I’m having a harder time sharing myself with others now that we’re socializing more, but overall, I am much more comfortable with who I am.”
Being reintroduced to such a socially rigorous environment is something that many students are still adjusting to, despite having been fully in school for roughly a month already. And though new self-confidence from growing during isolation can feel empowering, the anxiety associated with seeing new faces every day can counteract the progress in self-image made over the past year.
Sophomore Jacky Lara noted that she’s become more reserved since last year, finding difficulty embracing the now normalized realities of the social conundrum we find ourselves in. She explained that she doubts we’ll ever be able to go back to the way things were, but that a new ‘normal’ doesn’t seem out of reach.
Claustrophobia, self-esteem struggles, and difficulty socializing have all become common side effects of learning to be a human again. We walk the halls seeing new faces each day. Our minds aren’t prepared to process such drastic changes within such a short time period, and we’re expected to essentially begin school all over again, pretending like this nightmare predicament conforms to our standard of the everyday.
Sophomore Zach Long said that the larger class sizes have been difficult to adjust to. Long said, “…there are times in class where I do get more afraid to volunteer for something because of the number of people. I got really used to the groups in hybrid and it was definitely a change going from that to full in person.”
He continues that though these anxieties are very much present, there are some upsides to being around more people. “I know this is not a good thing necessarily, but I’ve always felt some need to impress other people…That said, this has not altered as a result of the full in-person. If anything, it has gotten better because of the greater number of people I am able to interact with at school.”
So, although the culture shock of full in-person interaction has caused a considerable social transposition from one purgatory to the next, there have been good things to come out of it, too. The futility of it all can be difficult to reckon with, requiring each and every one of us to challenge our criticisms of ourselves. We’re all fundamentally flawed human beings trying to find our place in the world. The first step to doing so is acknowledging the elephant in the room.
Despite everything, we can unanimously agree that nothing can ever be the same. Renner concluded her thoughts by saying, “But I think everyone has changed so much that relationships and how we interact with one another will be different. Some things that were different though the pandemic seem to be better and may stick around to become a new ‘normal.’” The words “new normal” familiarly harken back to when lockdown began, and though the phrase has stayed constant, the meaning has changed with every wave. Now, as we arrive (inchmeal) at the end of a long tunnel, we can begin the process of recognizing the social connotations of the pandemic that won’t be going away anytime soon.