But the sun is still shining. When I look around campus, there are very few signs that anything has changed. The trees are the same. The buildings are the same. Mary still stands tall on the mountainside. The stray cats control the parking lots at night. You can hear friends laughing, boys skateboarding, and public safety driving by on rounds. Physically, not much is different.

Mentally, it is a much different environment. The perpetual fear in the back of everyone’s minds is that of being forced off campus and back to the houses we just recently escaped from. Every person you pass on the sidewalk is carrying this tension and stress; it is overwhelming. There is a general sense of the unknown ever present. No one knows what the next two weeks will bring. It is absolutely terrifying. We sit in class wondering if the final exams the professors are including in their syllabi will actually happen. The uncertainty is killing us faster than any virus could. It is the second day of classes and I worry it could be my last.

Aside from the future, there are massive complications in the present. Where is the line between the safety of others and my quality of life? Many people have taken a liberal approach to this line, with parties in the dorms where disease can be easily spread take over. Some are on the opposite end of the spectrum, with strict rules for themselves and anyone they encounter. Freshmen who have never experienced college life want to dive in headfirst while upperclassmen, who know what they lost by being sent away in the Spring, are hesitant to do anything that might repeat the past. Everyone is at a different comfort level. Everyone is processing the virus differently. But we are all scared of something: contracting the virus, being sent home, or living a life not worth living.

But there is something that makes it all worth it: being back on campus. That was the one thing that I wanted more than anything since March and it feels unreal to have it become reality. I am having to learn new skills: how to recognize people I haven’t seen in months by only their eyebrows, how to understand words when I can’t read someone’s lips, and how to do a Zoom class when my roommate is doing hers at the same time only six feet away. Professors are having to pick up new technology on the spot and struggle to stand inside their taped off area of the classroom because they are used to pacing up and down the aisles in heated discussion. Staff involved in sanitation are working longer and harder than ever before. Club and organization leaders have to come up with new ways to reach their members when they aren’t allowed in the same room. Adaptation is the goal of the semester because that is the only way we will be able to succeed. For the first time in our lives, we have to live completely in the moment and not spare a second to think about what could happen next. Because no one knows the future. No one saw the virus coming, no one knows when it will go. For a society that is always moving to the next big thing, we are struggling to stay still and wait. Patience has never been our virtue. All of a sudden, it has become our lifeline.

I am reminded of the history of the Mount. Through two hundred years, the university has experienced a lot. During the Civil War, it was a battleground. It survived the two World Wars. Nestled next to Camp David, the Cold War must’ve brought tension to the campus just as the virus has. A hundred years ago, the school faced the flu of the early twentieth century. It has survived bankruptcy, scandal, and death. Nevertheless, the Mount has persisted. There is something to say about a college that has existed relatively unchanged for more than two hundred years. There aren’t many schools that hold the same record. With Mary looking over us, it’s hard to believe the school could ever disappear completely. She will always get us through. The panic and uncertainty still exist, but maybe we can find some sort of peace in knowing how we have overcome the past.

No one has been spared in the midst of all this. There is not one soul this virus hasn’t touched. This is a collective sort of trauma that we will not completely heal from for a long time. No one has any control over this situation or the greater pandemic. All we can do is wait, which will prove to be one of the hardest things we’ve ever had to do.

But it isn’t the waiting that is the saddest part. It isn’t the distance or the dining hall at half capacity. It isn’t even the Zoom classes. It is the fact that when I am sad, no one can hug me. And I cannot hug them. We will cry silently into our face masks and sanitize afterwards. We will hide our sniffling, so no one thinks we have symptoms, when in reality we’re just struggling with the current state of things. And no one can hug us.

I am willing to do whatever it takes to stay on campus and ensure my semester happens in person as much as it can. But even I have my limits. Even I am wondering if this is a life worth living.