I have to admit, it was a struggle to watch boarders return to school a week before classes while I sat at home, locked away in my quarantine cave.
For months and months I had been dreaming of going back to school, and then all of a sudden I saw my friends there, and I wanted to go even more. But I couldn’t, and in the days preceding the start of classes, I began to experience the typical back-to-school butterflies. However, in spite of all my doubts about returning, it was a great first week back. I realized that, although it’s hard to be a day student at the moment, I am still on campus six days a week, still able to see my friends, still able to play my favorite sports. Over the summer, I think I began to forget how much Groton sports meant to me. Even though I missed out on playing a spring sport, I had a blast playing soccer and then basketball last year, and I was so excited to see all of the familiar faces as well as the new ones joining us this fall.
Looking back, it’s crazy how much I took Groton’s beautiful campus for granted. Growing up in Massachusetts, it looked like every other suburban town… until now. Now I recognize that having so much outdoor space has made the restrictions so much more bearable. Trails in the woods for calming walks, huge fields to play spikeball and soccer, apple trees that provide us with rotten fruit to throw at each other from six feet away, all of these things have made my first week back seem as though my life is finally returning to normal. Almost.