Life Update: August 2020

     When I came back to the blog to post a life update before returning to Philly, I realized I had never posted my initial quarantine post. Reading it again made me realize how much I have grown accustomed to the uncertainty of this season. I was wrong about several things in that post: wrong that I would move back to Philly in June or July (I'm moving back August 16th), wrong that quarantine would be over in a few weeks or months, wrong that the pandemic would end by summer. Some of those sentiments weren't directly expressed in the post, but I knew I felt it. I am happy to say that I still do not personally know anyone who has died from the virus, and only know of a handful of people who have had it at all (none in my family). I am grateful for that.

     On March 22nd, I had no way of knowing what the next few months would hold: that I would be offered a full-time job as a teacher resident with Temple Teacher Residency, that I would be co-teaching 10th grade English starting September 2nd, or that that job would be 100% virtual for the first semester. I had no way of knowing that Temple would adopt a hybrid model for the 2020-21 year, drastically changing what college looks like for so many students. In May, my heart hurt for graduates who never got a chance to walk across a stage and celebrate their achievements, especially if they were the first in their family and if they did not intend to pursue more education. Now, in August, my heart hurts for incoming college freshman who worked so hard to get to college. Their college experience will be nothing like the excitement of my own. They will have a much harder time finding community, making friends, and feeling at home. My heart hurts for young students trapped at home in families enduring a lot of turmoil, students who truly cannot learn well virtually but are forced to because of the circumstances. I hope that some day soon we can look back on this time with a sense of relief that it is over and shock that we were able to endure it for so long. I am fully aware that life for many others is infinitely harder than it has been for me these past five months. I have a lot to be grateful for because of the quiet, reflective time these months have granted me.

     I was able to enjoy a relaxing but productive summer at home, where I took two online summer courses, visited with friends in both Philadelphia and Maryland, enjoyed a three-day weekend at the beach, went camping in the mountains of western Maryland, lounged around at the bay, got hooked on the Throne of Glass series, started and finished Schitt's Creek, attended a zillion Zoom interviews, meetings and trainings, co-taught an online summer camp on social justice and youth advocacy for middle schoolers, filled out dozens of pages of paperwork, started and finished an entire journal, spent Tuesday evenings with my Zoom bible study group, started a virtual running club with friends from bible study, ran 30 miles in a month, donated 8 inches of hair (and survived the worst hair cut of my life), took many a walk around my little town, and learned how to be content in the unshakable uncertainty that is life in 2020.

     As I pack up to move back to Philly, knowing that this summer marked my last time living at home, I'm not sure how to feel. I'm two parts wary and anxious, one part excited and motivated. I'm not excited to be a virtual teacher, but I am excited to be a teacher: the one thing I've been striving for for over a decade. I'm excited to start my first full-time job, excited to face the challenges to come. I'm anxious to be moving back to a city that is so changed by the virus, to a campus that will not look or feel like the campus that I grew to love over the course of four years. I'm wary because of the many disappointments I know I will encounter due to virtual teaching and learning. But I am ready to be close to the communities I have missed the past five months, ready to be moving back to the apartment I love and that feels like home. Covid-19 has rocked our entire world, from the biggest things to the most mundane conveniences we once took for granted. If I could somehow undo the virus, I would in a heartbeat. But given that I do not have that control, I can accept that covid-19 also opened doors and opportunities for me that otherwise would not have existed. I can appreciate that it gave me one last peaceful, relaxing summer at home in Maryland with my family, that it made my position with TTR possible, that it gave me time to slow down and enjoy the simple things in life before the chaos of the years to come as I enter post-grad life.

I don't know when I'll post again, but given all the recent changes, I thought it was appropriate to write something in our corner of the internet for posterity.

-SE Wagner