Every day feels the same. We all know it is the season to be jolly and cheerful, so we are. Two weeks of no school, sound familiar? I fear that we aren’t happy for the holidays but instead for the break. A mental break from zooms, homework, and basically everything. I woke up yesterday in the middle of the night because it was cold. I guess my body is still registering the fact that it’s December. It feels as if yesterday we were back in March. Where did all the months in between go? Time is such a weird concept. It’s this intangible force that is universal and inevitable. Even though we know we can’t conquer it, we try so hard to bend it to our will. However, thanks to Einstein’s theory of relativity, we know time isn’t even absolute. That really messes with my mind. When the pandemic upended our lives, it felt like time itself had betrayed us. We were all somehow transported into a new realm of existence where days were 25 hours and weeks blended into each other. Everything just feels so surreal.

I’m just glad I’m not the only one that felt this way. I thought my overthinking self got the best of me, apparently not. Mia Isabella Jen stated, “ Seeing everyone hang up their Christmas decorations is the only reason I know it’s Christmas.” Oscar Cruz added on saying, “ I don’t care that it’s Christmas. I mean I’m excited because it’s Christmas but I just want this year to be done with.”

I took a lot of thinking into what Oscar said. “ …I just want this year to be done with.” Does he want to demolish the existence of time in this year and move onto the next? Or does he wish 2020 didn’t end up the way it did? There’s so much to be discovered about the presence of time and yet I’m scared. Time betrayed me. I live my life by checklist and worship my google calendar. When the linearity we rely on to plan, mark, and measure, collapses, what do we hold onto? Who are we when our google calendars are empty?