Reflecting on the past year, it is easy to feel as though America is in the same spot it was last March, or even worse. Although we are nowhere near out of the woods, it is important to take notice of the progress that has been made. Vaccines have started to roll out and are becoming more accessible to larger groups of people. In Oakland County, Covid cases have been staying relatively low. More and more schools have started to reopen and will continue to open up as time goes on. There are so many things to look to when thinking about how we have changed and grown from last March.

Looking to the future, there are a multitude of possibilities to where the world and our community will be. Seeing as there has already been so much progress in terms of Covid, I personally believe that by a year from now, most, if not all of America will be vaccinated. This could lead to a return to a more “normal” life.

Fellow students at Berkley High School also held this optimistic view of the future. Senior Charlotte Capuano believes that we will “still wear masks,” but we won’t have to be as cautious as we are now. She said that she thinks, “things can happen, but the world won’t go completely back to normal.”

Junior Grace Watson also believes that we will still be wearing masks. She says, “I don’t think things are going to be completely the way that they were before this.” This seems to be the mindset of most people. After a year of uncertainty, it makes sense that everyone has a feeling of cautious optimism.

We may be far from normal and will probably never go back to where the world was a year ago, but it is nice to think about how the world would be in a perfect situation.

The past year has brought a lot of stress to almost everyone. Some would even wish to just go back to ‘Pre-Covid Times.’ “[I wish] I could see people without being nervous that I’m going to pass Covid off to someone,” said Capuano. This is a feeling shared by most people. The struggle between wanting to still hold a sense of community while also staying safe has been a hard thing to balance.

In his perfect future sophomore Josh Bianca said, “hopefully more vaccinations, more research, more knowledge, even” could be provided in our community and the world. He said that he “still [has] questions that people just can’t answer.” This has definitely been a common feeling for the past year. Hopefully, in the next year, more and more information will be known about Covid and the multitude of uncertainties that the world faces.

Looking forward to the future is important, but Watson also mentioned the growth that has happened in the past year. “I don’t want to disregard all of the lessons we have learned through the pandemic,” she said. “I definitely think this has been a growing experience for a lot of people.”

With all of the hardship of the past year, everyone was forced to quickly adapt to the changing times. This has most definitely caused a lot of growth for everyone, no matter their experience. Personally, I am a very different person from who I was in March 2020, and I’m sure you have evolved in some way as well.

There are a lot of things we had to leave behind last March because of the pandemic. There were so many changes that affected all of our lives. A lot of these changes made it so people couldn’t do what they love to do.

One of the things that people miss the most is the arts. Watson says that in the next year “[she] hope[s] we can sing.” She mentioned that choir has been very difficult to do over Zoom, and now that choirs can meet in person, it is better. There are still some drawbacks, though. While Berkley choirs, such as A Cappella, the choir Watson is a part of, are able to sing together in person for the first time this year, singing with a mask on still holds back the group. Because of this, Watson continues her prior statement by saying “it would be ideal” to not have to wear masks while singing.

Bianca said that he hopes that theatre will be back to normal soon. Similarly to choir, Berkley theatre is able to come back in person with the requirements to wear masks and social distance. He said he “wish[ed] that we could just do this normally, like last year,” when speaking about theatre. There are a lot of things that many people wish could be done as they were a year ago. His main struggle with doing theatre now is that it is “a different experience. Everything has just changed.” He thinks, “it’s more of an endeavor than it should be.” I think this is a very relatable statement. It seems as if everything now requires much more thought that it used to.

Another monumental event in many students’ lives that has been changed greatly because of the pandemic is college. Berkley seniors have to not only worry about getting into college, they now have to stress over Covid in that new setting. Capuano says that her biggest hope for life one year from now is “to go to college normally.” As a soon-to-be college freshman, it is very nerve-wracking without the fear of Covid, so this being an added stressor is something that many people hope will be gone.

It is shocking to look back at a year ago and remember all of the things everyone used to do. Slowly, we will be able to get close to that again. With schools opening up more and more, and with increased vaccines being available to people, I think that Josh Bianca’s perfect world of more knowledge could be possible. There is new progress being made everyday.

The next year will see a lot of change just as the past year already has. But I think that this year will bring more exciting changes. I think that it is time to emerge from the (not so rhetorical) cave to more forward in the coming months and grow immensely from this experience. I think Watson put it best, “I don’t want to disregard all of the lessons we’ve learned through the pandemic because it has definitely been a learning experience for a lot of people,… but I would like to all just be together again.”

I think that is something every single person is looking forward to.