Most my life I have been a bit of an introvert. I appreciate my alone time and I don’t mind being by myself. However, this semester has taught me that without relationships with people who matter to you, nothing else is important.

Since being in quarantine I have felt little motivation to do much of anything, especially schoolwork, and I know that many of my peers feel the same way. I have come to the conclusion that interaction with one another is a key motivator, and I have found that I am far less productive without it. We live for those quick conversations before class starts, meeting our friends for dinner after a long day, and at least for me, and probably many other honors students, competition. Without these aspects of our life that seem so simple and typical, nothing holds the same meaning. What I miss most about in-person classes isn’t the superior instruction or the absence of laggy zoom lectures, but rather the community of the classroom.

Luckily my family has been somewhat of a relief to me during the pandemic and I have come to appreciate them more. I motivate myself to do homework because I know at 6 I get to have dinner with my them and if I got enough done during the day, I can join them for a show or movie after. This has shown me how important different kinds of relationships are. We have our family, our close friends, the people we talk to in class, our professors, our roommates or floor-mates, the woman who always takes our Dunkin’ order in the morning, and all of these people work together to create a unique experience that is our lives. When most of these interactions are taken away so quickly, how are we to feel anything but empty?

Human’s are resilient and have found ways to cope with these temporary loses, but the thing that keeps most of us going is the promise that we will soon return to a social life with all the relationships that make us who we are. I have learned that people are what piece our lives together and without others we are utterly incomplete. I am so looking forward to a day where I cannot count on my hands the number of human interactions I experience. I yearn for a week where these interactions make every day different and unpredictable. I dream of simply being in the presence of others.