We asked our teen volunteers to reflect on the last year - what they learned, how they changed, and what they are hoping to bring into 2021. This is Lydia's reflection:
Dear Yesterday,
It feels like a century, and yet only a day. Today, you are forever out of my reach. Some days, I wish I could crawl back into your arms, while other days I’m packing your bags so you’ll leave sooner. It was only last night that I was eagerly awaiting your departure. But now tomorrow seems lonely and frightening without you. With you, the days were full of waiting and hiding, but at least we had each other. I do not know what tomorrow brings. People say that it will be better than before, but I am not sure. Have I ever told you I have a fear of the unknown? Tomorrow could be worse, or better, or even the same. But the scary thing is, I do not know which it will be. Will you carry me through the night, back to you, where I know what happens, where I know who lives and who I lose?
But it does not work that way, does it? I can never go back to you. You are gone forever. Remember painting together on Sunday mornings, listening to church in our pajamas? How the week before life hit pause we were blissfully unaware of an invisible enemy while riding rollercoasters? Do you remember how the sun blinded us when we emerged from hibernation, how amazing it was to see someone in the flesh instead of through the empty void of Zoom? Or the time when we danced in the parking lot, the dandelion puffs floating by while we leaped and turned? Is it possible at all to return to those moments?
And yet, can the fear of the future eclipse that of the past? The food shortages, toilet paper runs, the quarantining, the unrest in the world, all continue to send chills down my spine because they are still my reality. How has my life come to this point? How did my world change so quickly? One minute I was 35,000 feet in the air, surrounded by hundreds of people, the next moment four black walls closed me in with no one in sight. Life became an everlasting day, with no night on the horizon. “Now” became a synonym for “forever”.
But life is not lived in you, in yesterday. I cannot keep living in the past, dredging through life instead of testing the waters. Today is all I have. Tomorrow will come. It might be worse than the day before, but I’m praying it will be better. So, good-bye, my friend. I will miss you and the time we spent together. I will never forget you, not even in a century and a day.
-Your friend
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