Untitled by Kennedy Conroy You Good by Izzy Felix

BY IZZY FELIX

BY KENNEDY CONROY

Untitled

In 20, maybe 30, years from now, my kids are going to walk through the door and tell me that in school they started learning about the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020. They’ll ask me what it was like to live through such a momentous period in history: was it terrifying? Being completely honest with them, I would have to say: It’s complicated. I’ll explain that I had turned 17 three days before the entire world shut down, how within those same three days I witnessed my buzzing teenage world dwindle from days spent giggling with friends to days that seemed to blend together with no real agenda. “Was it terrifying?” In a way, it absolutely was. We were dealing with something that we’d never quite seen before, something that felt more catastrophic than any hurricane or flood because it wreaked havoc invisibly. More than anything though, it was a period of deep confusion and dissatisfaction. The easiest way for me to explain what this period of time felt like as a teenager is a coming-of-age movie that production stopped filming halfway through. None of the milestones that have been romanticized by media or experienced by past generations ever came to fruition. I rushed out of class the day our “2week closure” was announced, not saying goodbye to anyone in the halls; little did I know I would never see them again. I never got to see my friends open acceptance letters to Universities. Never got to walk the halls with them again. Never got to see them graduate. In my day-to-day life that no longer felt purposeful, I was mourning the life that I would have otherwise been living. With no new places to go, I took it into my own hands to try and make this a period of learning and local exploration. Running the trail systems in Ogden became my savior during quarantine. As familiar as I was with the trail systems, there were details that I had overlooked

(cont’d on pg 14)