Navigating the Waters of Life, The Pandemic, and Senior Year

Nia Hodges’ essay was selected to be featured in Wissahickon, a magazine published by the Chestnut Hill Local, this spring. Hodges, Class of 2022, was one of the editors of the student literary journal, The Pub, and now attends Brown University. Her essay is reprinted here with permission from the Local.

Our lives are filled with countless paradoxes. Contradictions.

We watch the sun rise at dawn, only to watch it fall at dusk. I always prefer a beautiful sunset over the nearest ocean to a sunrise. In the ocean, some swim against the current— muscling their way through endless blue just to find the serendipity of that one perfect wave—only to become one with the current as it floats them back to shore.

My favorite paradox involves a ship and a man named Theseus.

A hero and a king of Athens, Theseus partook in a great battle and against all odds, emerged triumphant. To honor his legacy, the people of Athens decided to preserve his ship in their harbor as an artifact of his greatness.

However, as time progressed, the ship began to decay.

The wood planks began to chip and fray. The oars split and the floors creaked. The wooden beams began to rot, and soon the people of Athens had to replace all of the old parts with stronger and stronger pieces of timber. A century later, the children of those townspeople beheld a ship essentially “reconstructed” from itself. The ship in their harbor remained the ship of Theseus, and yet not the ship of Theseus. In a Buddhist iteration of this same story (Dà zhìdù lùn), a man has the parts of his body replaced with those of another and, in the end, cannot determine where he ends and the other begins.

Here lies our paradox: Can something reconstructed remain the original?

I don’t quite remember when the pandemic started and in the context of the past two years, this admission feels like a form of sacrilege. The word “COVID-19” has so effectively wedged itself into the proverbial English dictionary (and Merriam-Webster) that my forgetfulness feels a bit out of place. The internet claims that the pandemic started in March of 2020, but I remain slightly skeptical. March feels like yesterday, and yesterday I was watching the sunset from the balcony in my apartment.

I couldn’t tell where my body ended and the pandemic began.

I almost felt peaceful— one with the current. Perhaps I am unable to identify the beginning of the pandemic because I am unable to identify myself during that time. Of course, I remember the silhouette of me—short and mid-stride running to class—with a decent amount of clarity. But like the ship of Theseus, there were pieces of me suddenly replaced with spare parts. Last year (my junior year), I couldn’t tell where my body ended and the pandemic began. My mouth was lost to the N-95, and my hands permanently retracted to my sides for fear of spreading contact—my bony elbows would have to do. My eyes met glasses for the first time after weeks of staring at bright screens. My already soft voice dimmed until I had to almost shout to be heard, which made me completely unrecognizable to myself. I was me, yet reconstructed. This was pandemic Nia, and she seemed like a frightening imposter straight out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

I speak for the Class of 2022 when I say that junior year was its own paradox. With the loss of so many aspects of our academic and personal lives—our moments of serendipity—we struggled to reconcile an increasingly frightening present and an increasingly welcomed future: college. As the rest of the world turned inward toward the safety of their homes, we turned outward toward the colleges and universities that would become central to our futures. As the country grew divisive over mask policies and mandates, we drew closer to each other: Intuition told us that this year, however challenging, would be the defining moment of our time in high school. Strangely, I never felt so supported by my peers as when I was nothing more than a face on a screen participating in online learning while everyone else was in-person. The time spent apart from each other made every moment together that much more meaningful. Our realities had been torn apart, but we remained the original group of people who all respected one another.

As I set sail toward this next chapter of my life, I move through the waters with an undetachable anchor to the past. I will always be defined by the people who raised me, the experiences that have shaped me, and the moments, which I will cherish forever.

As a graduate moving into college, I am still made up of spare parts. My favorite black jeans are chipped and frayed. There are days where I do not know where I end and this reconstruction of me begins. I am my history, my family, and this pandemic. I am someone who does not believe in “solving” paradoxes. The most beautiful parts of life are not meant to last for more than a second. A single day.

I wouldn’t want to miss it.