The first moment I started dreaming about my senior year of high school was when I watched my cousin walk across the stage when I was eight years old. I couldn’t wait for senior pictures, for senior brunch, for my cap and gown, and for my grad party. Now I sit in bed on Google Meet, chatting with my teachers about how I hope that I’ll move into my dorm at Indiana University on time, how I hope that I can start my freshman program, which I was just accepted into and work hard for three years to get into, in August.

I told my grandmother this, whom I have not seen since January, and her response was “You guys don’t deserve this.” And while she is right, that us seniors don’t deserve this horrible situation during our senior year, or anyone for that matter, I have also been thinking a lot about how if you would’ve told me this was going to happen even three months ago, I would’ve laughed in your face and told you to stop joking around.

I am not invincible. I never dreamed of any of this happening to me, but that’s the problem. We all never thought something like this would happen. And this mindset is what is going to make Coronavirus last a lot longer than necessary in America. 

There are kids in our school still going out with large groups of friends, getting within six feet of each other, or going to people’s houses. Why? Because they don’t think this will happen to them. The exact same mindset that has now brought the world as we know it to a screeching halt. 

America is NOT great right now. We have been the slowest to respond, the absolute weakest in the rate of closing off businesses, and even though we’ve seen how this is affecting other countries, we still have no true national lockdown. If we keep acting like this is not a true problem, and don’t take drastic measures like other nations, it is truly wishful thinking that this will be over by the time I hope to move into college. 

We have it good in America. We have our freedoms, we have the ability to do mostly whatever we want. But this is an unprecedented time, a time when we need to truly look at ourselves and ask if it is worth going out to hang out in large groups during a time when thousands are dying and people in our own communities are hurting, if it is worth keeping the economy a 110% value above our citizens when it will only make this pandemic last longer.

Stop being selfish. We are past the mindset of “this will never happen to me”, because it has. Our final year of school was cut short, do we really want this to last another six months?