'My classmates and I got through it': Naperville North grad reflects on senior year

My first day of in-person school senior year - it was late January instead of mid-August, and my classmates and I were seated apart and masked.

My previous first days of school had always been filled with excited chatter and hugs. But on this first day, we all sat in silence. It was simply sad to be in a room full of people I had known so well just a year prior. We had forgotten things. Forgotten how to start and maintain a conversation with your neighbor. Forgotten what it was like to wear jeans instead of sweatpants, and sit in a plastic chair instead of a warm bed cuddled up in a blanket.

At this point, a lot of the typical senior traditions had passed us by. Yes, we still had prom and graduation and all the end-of-the-year activities, but as we had been repeatedly learning over the past year, nothing was for certain. A lot of us were simply just burned out from a disappointing and stressful semester.

The coronavirus made both picking and applying to colleges difficult. Navigating the college application process is stressful enough on its own; but going through it in a pandemic, especially being the oldest of four and not having as much access to counselors and teachers as I would in a normal year, I felt very alone. I was walking blindly through the process. But my classmates and I got through it.

I had applied to colleges and was planning for my life after high school. I felt I had already mourned a lot of the losses I experienced and I wasn't sure what I was going to be able to have this year and what I wasn't ... so I just expected to have nothing. Yes, school was still important to me, but I began really leaning into and prioritizing other things like my family, my hobbies, and my job. I felt that I had already moved on.

So sitting in a classroom again, I was reminded that I'm still a high schooler, I'm still a senior, I'm still a kid and I don't need to move on so fast from this place. I think all seniors, being in the middle of a pandemic or now, experience some uncomfortable growing pains. We're stuck in this weird middle phase of being both a kid and an adult.

Being in school for a couple more weeks, and then coming back to school full-time, things eventually became easier and felt more normal. We were able to get that classroom banter back and fell into a new routine. Senior activities started becoming planned and my classmates and I started getting vaccinated. Things were starting to look up and return to normal. A new normal, but nevertheless, a normal. Which is what all of us have been craving for so long this past year.

Graduation is next week and as we're wrapping up our last semester of high school, I'm grateful for any opportunities we have to come together as a class and celebrate all of our hard work these last few years ... even if it isn't exactly how we pictured it. But through all the good, I'll still never forget how challenging and isolating this year started out as.

I'm not sad or bitter or even resentful towards my senior year, because frankly, what's the benefit of that? Yes, I had hardships, but so did everyone around me. In short: I've learned what terrible times can do for us.

• Tessa Devine, 18, graduated this month from Naperville North High School, where she served as managing editor of the school newspaper, The North Star. Tessa will leave her hometown of Naperville in the fall to attend the University of Wisconsin at Madison and pursue a degree in journalism.