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As the warm winter break comes to an end, for many students at top schools, the start of the year means back-to-back school deadlines, decisions, and days spent drafting applications. However, this season has also taken on a whole new character. for the class of 2024, as we approach the fourth anniversary of COVID-19 and global lockdowns.
Young people who entered the pandemic as high school freshmen now move into their final semester. Many high schoolers over the last few years have mourned the typical high school experience, parts of which they missed out on thanks to COVID-19. But today’s seniors never really had that typical experience at all. So as they near the end of high school, they envision what’s to come – whether it be the milestone of graduation or the possibilities of higher education – all the while reminiscing on what could have been, had the pandemic never happened. As they mull over the what-ifs of canceled ceremonies and the missed rites long-associated with teenagehood, some feel robbed.
“Where did my years go? I was in eighth grade and now I’m in 12th grade. How did all of this happen?,” high school senior Divya Bamorya, 17, from India, often asks herself. “It was very difficult to even realize what time [meant] to me.”
For those students, having to readjust their understanding of time and closure in the midst of wonderful confusion was no easy task. Rather, redefining what it means to be of age has been an ongoing process. The era of virtual study rooms would possibly be (for the most part) over, but the effects of the pandemic continue to reverberate in the halls of those final months of the best school. Below, we spoke to the class of 2024 to find out how COVID-19 has influenced their past four years: from navigating uncharted waters and managing losses to building networks in the spaces that needed it most.
Coping and uncertainty
“The pandemic came 3 months after my father died,” Stella Sturgill, an 18-year-old American, told Teen Vogue. At the time of her father’s death, she was living with her mother and sister. His house remained the same, he felt his absence very much and this was aggravated by the confinements. “We’ve all experienced, in other ways, this pain so sharp and intense,” Sturgill said.
Several time zones away, in England, senior Gamu Mavhinga, 17, dealt with the death of her dad at the hands of COVID-19. Time seemed to erode, with moments of stagnancy followed by rapid transformation, especially felt once she moved to the United Kingdom from Africa and had to resume high school virtually. “It felt a lot like a blur [and] was such an intense period of anxiety, forming friendships, and trying to maintain those as well with [my] family…It’s almost like I didn’t have time to stop and think,” she said.
As Mavhinga struggled with one replacement after another in his new country, he also observed “a kind of strange disparity,” in which many of his friends were fueled by concern for the well-being of their families, mirroring his concerns for their loved ones. in Zimbabwe and South Africa, while other acquaintances downplayed the severity of the pandemic, spent hours in bed and created TikToks about their boredom. “There was a big gap between those other two experiences,” she said. “Before, I was very angry with other people who couldn’t really perceive how others felt. “
He remembers being afraid that anger would cloud his hope. Similarly, Bamorya remembers the time she spent trying to make it to ninth grade, but it never happened in the classic sense; Concerns about securing your network have killed any enthusiasm you’ve ever had. For teens around the world, “being separated from friends, separated from family, even consuming other people until they get sick [or] regretting the life we just had. “as Sturgill said, it revealed just how nuanced the loss gradient has been. Big or small, those emotions of separation were difficult to delineate and pin down, as were the tactics with which young people confront and respond to them.
Resilience in the Face of Ambiguous Loss
First explained by educator and researcher Pauline Boss in the 1970s, ambiguous loss can surround losses that lack resolution or deviate from our traditional understanding of those experiences. The feeling is familiar but the source is not: it is a type of pain that refuses to be categorized, a pain without definitive closure. It’s a kind of pain that, once expressed, encouraged Sturgill to “find tactics to make sense of those kinds of losses. “
“When I think broadly about resilience and adaptability, what resonates is this concept of being capable of yourself [while] taking care of those around you,” she said. Creating systems, actively tracking classmates and circle of family members through text messages or phone calls. “The pandemic has taught me that a smart friendship lasts. , it doesn’t matter where you are,” he said.
For Mavhinga, the comfort that family offered during and after her father’s funeral opened her eyes to the vast network of support surrounding her. At the funeral, the high school senior recounts a conversation she had with her uncle, who said that “‘what binds us is something more, because we are a family. You always have me and I’ll always have you and your pain is my pain.’”
Community, redefined
Whether it be completing Chloe Ting workout challenges with friends, organizing online study groups, or finding digital forums for one’s favorite fandoms, “it was the silly things to help us feel like we were actually together when we couldn’t be,” Mavhinga said. Taking the initiative to create their own schedules and stay busy offered relief so many had yearned for; friendship no longer needed to be tethered to – or proven by – physical interaction. Some teens sought refuge in crafting, while many opted to bake bread. Still, for others, podcasting turned out to be the ultimate outlet.
“The sunlight that shines on your face in winter,” is how Sturgill described his first discovery and then his participation in the podcast This Teenage Life, a podcast for teenagers. When she was in eighth grade, she began listening to podcasts to accompany her daily walks and she remembers eagerly bingeing episode after episode of TTL. This filled the sense of connection she was missing during lockdown, and during her first year in high school, she reached out to the podcast, eventually becoming part of organizing her debates with other teens.
For Mavhinga, “hearing other people her age communicate in real time how they feel in a way that’s not condescending” is a refreshing reminder of not unusual struggles. The wide diversity of topics TTL explores, from intellectual fitness to her favorite snacks and movies, appealed to her and Bamorya.
Amid the turmoil of the 2020 presidential election, 17-year-old senior member and TTL member Jayden Dial of the United States “needed a way to feel like [she] had some impact” and reached out to others academics I knew. and who they were. Dozens of discussions later, her hopes came true when she began sharing episodes of the podcast with her teachers to help them address conversations about racism in the classroom.
On and offline, continually redefining togetherness, resilience, and adaptation has become, as Mavhinga calls it, the “collective binding force” that unites her graduating class. Dial echoes this sentiment and has found that, after becoming so used to constant adaptations, she’s now eager to take on the unknowns that college has to offer. “It’s been a pretty wacky four, five years, and I’m just ready to see what else life has to give me,” she said.
“Going to college, I know our relationships are going to change, just as they did with the pandemic,” Sturgill says, “but I have religion and I sense that I will be able to adapt. “
It originally printed in Teen Vogue.