I’ve taken online classes before, but not like this.

I’ve spent significant amounts of time away from my best friends, but not like this.

I’ve experienced life shifts, faced uncertainty and wished for a different reality all before, but not like this.

Even though it’s not my first time around the block, it really feels like it is. We have all been thrown into an alternate reality, one that none of us had time to prepare for. We aren’t all like Dwight Schrute with a fully-stocked bomb shelter at our disposal.

When spring semester started, I didn’t expect to be kicked off campus and forced to finish my sophomore year from my kitchen table.

It’s hard not to feel robbed, and I’m sure plenty of other students feel the same way. From the amount of time I’ve had for reflection, I have a long list of what-ifs. What friends would I have made if I were still on campus? What homework would I have procrastinated? What dogs would I have seen? WHAT DOGS WOULD I HAVE PET?

Yet, I realize the selfishness of these thoughts. There is an international emergency happening around me, and I can’t stop thinking about how I’m so inconvenienced because I can’t sit outside on the quad with my friends on a sunny day.

I understand that comparison is the thief of joy and so forth, but the revelation of my instinctive selfishness is what sparked a mindset shift. I cannot control the situation, but I can control my reaction.

I’ve done my best to cope with the new reality. I go for walks. I try new hobbies (like finally teaching myself guitar) and return to old ones (like writing for fun and not for class). I FaceTime friends, call my parents and Zoom into class.

What gives me hope is seeing how we adapt. From classes to work to friends, I have witnessed a drastic shift, but we find ways around the distancing. Like I mentioned before, I Zoom into most of my classes and get to see and interact with my professors and classmates. TommieMedia is still churning out content like a 19th century dairymaid. As for friends, a group of us meet one or two times a week via Zoom to learn about different topics from each other, like pottery or hacky sacks.

However, the hardest part of the stay-at-home order for me has been the cancellation of religious services. As a Catholic, receiving the Eucharist is a foundational part of not just my faith, but of my entire life. I went from going to Mass almost every day to not being able to go at all, not even on Easter Sunday.

It’s for the safety of the community, I know that, but it still hurts my heart to watch Mass online instead of being there in person. I pray in other ways － reading, journaling, meeting with my small group － but when my faith life revolved around sacraments that are now heavily restricted, spiritual dryness is inevitable.

This dryness in my faith makes it even more important for me to embrace the shift. I can’t control this situation, but I can control what I do. I go to class, even though it’s not the same. I call my friends, even though I would rather hug them. And I still pray, even though I don’t hear a reply.

We are all being stretched and tested by this reality. I don’t have answers to the what-ifs, and I never will. We can’t put a pause on life; we will never get our 2020 spring semester back. By taking each day as it comes, I’ve been able to find a corner of peace in the uncertainty.

Kayla Mayer can be reached maye8518@stthomas.edu.