An Inside Voice: Preparing for the inevitable return to normal

Spring is almost over. Unless you are one of the highly motivated students who takes classes through the summer, this is the time that books and laptops are happily slammed shut and students look forward to a well-earned summer vacation. The year has been gruelling, and it’s time to see friends and kick back, forget about scholastic trials for a while. Oh, but wait: that was before, in a pre-pandemic era, before we went home to go to school, before we showered more in hand sanitizer than in the bathtub, before we chose medical face masks to match our outfits.

Now, whether we take summer classes or not, we will be preparing to go back to campus for the first time after 14 gloriously pajama-clad months.

I don’t have a clue if people imagine the same things I do when I think about going back to Camosun. I imagine the door of the Young Building creaking open and a bunch of vampire bats flying out. I imagine having to do a gigantic sweep of the campus weeks beforehand to give notice to the families of deer and rabbits that have been frolicking through the fields in the daytime and curling up under our desks at night. Either way, the place has been abandoned for a lot longer than anyone imagined, and there will undoubtedly be cleaning up to do.

I bet that there will be the usual trepidation and anxiety that always rises in one’s stomach on the first day of school. The usual questions: “Will I get to school on time?” “Will I like my new teachers?” “Will they like me?” “Will I make a friend?” Except now after living in this surreal COVID-19 nightmare (although, unfortunately, one cannot forget it, as one can a regular bad dream), our anxious questions might look like this: “Am I walking the right direction down the hallway?” “Did that person just cough?” “Am I really allowed to see the bottom of your face?” “Oh my God, I think that stranger bumped me!”

We can joke all we want, but the real damage is not obvious to the naked eye. Everyone has been affected by the trauma of the pandemic in varying degrees. A person gets used to life being one way, whether it be simple or complicated; to have it suddenly uprooted and changed is traumatic, and we should all be proud of ourselves for continuing on with stoicism or bravery. Walking back on campus will feel strange, I have no doubt, but I also have no doubt that we will adapt as quickly as we did when it shut down, but with a little less fear and a lot more to look forward to.