Time

by Ria Patel

It almost sounds like a plot from a dystopian movie: an incurable virus sweeps the world, causing a global pandemic and infecting hundreds of thousands of people in its wake.

As coronavirus spreads across the United States, businesses are shutting down, schools are moving online, and grocery stores are empty. As of March 17, a total of 5,894 Americans have been infected; this number will undoubtedly be larger by the time you read this post. YIG, the mock trial state competition, and Latin convention have been cancelled for social distancing purposes and the SAT and ACT have also been postponed: a dream for some, a nightmare for others.

This is definitely not how I imagined the last quarter of my junior year. I imagined watching Springfest, going to Nashville to win state with my mock trial team, and spending time with the seniors I love before they graduate. Instead, I’m at home missing my friends, wishing I was back in the same classrooms that I so gladly left the Thursday before spring break.

Now, if you are anything like me and everything you love is getting cancelled, you have probably had many adults tell you to stay positive or look at the bright side and you are tired of it. And I agree: the situation stinks. I can’t go out with friends, I can’t go to my favorite coffee shop, and without Mr. Soun, I will probably never understand calculus now. Instead, I’m supposed to be “self-motivated” and “flexible.”

But if SMS girls are anything, they are flexible. Don’t have a cafeteria? We can make do with teachers’ classrooms for lunch. Not enough chairs in the chapel? That’s okay, we can sit on the ground. No gym for our sports teams? We can win first place in Shelby County anyway. Things went wrong, but we made it work. 

Actually, we made it more than work; we made it amazing.

So no, that is not me saying to “stay positive,” whatever that even means. That is me saying that maybe you start that book that you have been wanting to read for so long or learn that complicated Tik Tok dance that you never had time to figure out. Or hey, maybe try getting eight hours of sleep ... now that it’s actually realistic. 

Just do that thing that you never had time for but have been dying to do. In the midst of all this chaos, we have been given this thing called time (who’s she?), something that we never seem to have enough of during the school year. And I encourage you to use it doing what you love, whatever that may be.