#falling asleep at six and waking up at eight to attend online school

[aoxizu]

in two days it will be november 5th

in two days it will be the first time since that fateful november 5th that another us presidential election will take place

soon i will go to the polls and cast in my own vote

i too can become a part of november 5th

[nazezdha321]

I don’t know how to make this any clearer to any of you. I don’t know who needs it to be any clearer. I don’t know a lot. But here’s what I do know: 

We are still in a global pandemic. I know you want to hang out with your friends and host dinner parties and go shopping at the mall and go to the gym and go to work and go to restaurants and whatever else you want to do. But we still have a public health crisis. There are 5 million cases in the United States. Look, I don’t know why the hell the President is saying that this will ‘disappear’ but the fact is, it isn’t. We’ve been in this for eight months, okay, and it’s only gotten worse. It sucks. I know. I want to go to school and hug my best friend and see movies in theaters and go to the beach and go to school. But we can’t. I’m sorry, but we can’t. 

We also can’t trust our government right now. That sucks too. The people who are supposed to be fighting for us and leading us aren’t doing a very good job. I know they get up there and they tell you that it’s all going to be okay and everything is fine, and look, there’s a cute picture of a puppy or whatever. It’s bullshit. Despite what a lot of them are saying, despite what Trump is claiming, you need to wear your fucking mask and stay six feet apart. 

I know that masks are annoying and six feet apart rules aren’t the easiest to abide by. Nobody ever said life would be easy. People you love are getting sick and people you love are dying, if they haven’t already. Almost 200,000 people have died in the US. We need to get this under control. Other countries aren’t eight months into this thing and having thousands of confirmed cases a day. You need to ask yourself why that is. 

And then you need to stay far away from others and you need to wear your mask. I know masks are inconvenient and itchy and when you’re chewing mint gum it stings your eyes when you breathe. We have more urgent problems. I’m sorry. That’s just how it is now. 

There is no way in hell that we should be attending school right now. I love school, I really do. I’m on the student council, I plan school events, I have a 4.0 GPA, I love my teachers. And my experience with online school last year was awful. My mental health suffered and there were days when I lay in bed crying at the fact that this was what I was living through. There were days when I tried to fall asleep at night but couldn’t. There were days where I had nightmares about dying from this virus and woke up shaking and covered in sweat and begging for the dreams to stop. I couldn’t bear to go back to sleep but I didn’t want to bother my overworked and exhausted parents. I still have those nightmares, I still wake up like that. 

And knowing all of that, feeling all of that, we can’t go back to in-person learning. You can’t send your kids to a classroom with thirty-five other kids. We have over two thousand people at my school and a shortage of teachers. No mask, no social distancing rules, nothing will prevent the worst if you send your children to school. People will die. Teachers will go to bed the same way I did for months. 

I saw that photo of a school in Georgia. People are going to die in situations like that. I work with little kids. They won’t keep their masks on for five seconds, much less an entire day. And some of them will die. I am a teenager, and about half of us don’t know the first thing about COVID-19. We will have a worse teacher shortage than we already do. They love us, they love their students, but they can’t do this every day. It’s not fair to them to make them choose between their sanity and their health and the health of their families and their job. Because they will make the right decision. And they will suffer every day thinking about it. 

I love school. But this time, I’m going to have to settle with online school. You and your kids will too. There’s going to be tears. There’s going to be hopelessness. There’s going to be that feeling of what did I do to deserve this? every single night. But that’s better than the alternative. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you had to hear this from a teenager sitting behind her laptop crying her eyes out and trying to shield the tears from her mother. I’m sorry that the US isn’t doing everything we can to stop this pandemic. I’m sorry that you’re alone right now. I’m sorry that the words you’re going to remember from this is ‘I’m sorry.’ I’m sorry I have to write this at all. 

But it’s all I have to offer you right now. I’m sorry. Please wear your mask. Please stay six feet apart. Please don’t send your kids to school.