In 2020, life stood still — but life will go on

I knew the coronavirus was going to cut my senior semester off when the University of Connecticut canceled spring sports.

After I got that notification, I was plunged into the painful meantime of waiting for the email officially telling me the remainder of the semester would be moved online.

The thing that tipped me off to the impact this virus would have on my life for the foreseeable future was something as uniquely human as organized sports. Humans are being asked to alter their entire way of life for a global pandemic. People are shutting themselves up with cans of beans and peanut butter.

But the frogs have absolutely no idea what’s happening.

I came to this realization while watching a tadpole swimming around the pond in the woods by my apartment. This slimy brown tadpole’s chief concern was not being eaten alive by a bird, which also has no idea what COVID-19 is. The frogs are oblivious and indifferent to the global pandemic consuming every facet of my human life. The frogs will continue swimming while people coat their homes and loved ones in Purell and hoard enough toilet paper to last them into the next decade.

The frogs’ lives will go on.

I made my way to the woods and this realization about nature’s indifference to our current crisis after I finished a run around an abandoned campus. An empty university shuttle bus passed me as I turned toward the lake. It was never unusual to see an empty bus on the weekend, since most students stayed inside for most of the day. But this bus was running for no one.

I made my way to the campus cemetery, which I passed dozens of times my junior year when I lived in the apartment complex at the top of the hill next to it. I remember seeing the track team run this route and thinking it was oddly morbid to run through a cemetery, but the steep hill did leave my legs burning.

At the top of the hill there was a squirrel jumping between the wooden fence posts. The squirrels would probably miss the fatty, salty treats students always left strewn about. The top of the hill provided a tremendous view of all the empty, locked buildings that compose UConn’s skyline, stared down upon by orderly rows of gravestones. I realized I would never set foot in most of those buildings again.

But even from a cemetery’s view, life will go on.

A week before this run, I had deep-cleaned my entire apartment, even the windowsills that haven’t been touched since October. I blasted Italian music while I dusted and disinfected — it seemed like the only thing I could do from this side of the ocean. My relatives in Italy had been locked up in their homes for weeks already. They seem to be making endless pizzas and posting them all on Instagram. Americans seemed to need a bit more convincing to cancel their spring break trips to Malibu and stay home to do some spring cleaning instead.

I was at my parents’ house when I got the email about UConn canceling spring sports. Earlier that day, I had decided I wanted to make tiramisu. My mom and I could both use the pick-me-up. My mom didn’t think the stores would have anything left. I assured her no one in America was panic-purchasing lady fingers and mascarpone. I was right. The store was completely out of sliced bread and paper goods but had plenty of soft cheeses and Italian cookies left.

The tiramisu was resting in the fridge when I got the email: UConn was officially moving all classes online for the rest of the semester, and graduation was canceled. I wouldn’t have my name called and walk across a stage to receive what wouldn’t even be my real diploma or take graduation photos with my friends outside our freshman dorm.

Even without those moments, though, life will go on.

But what stung the most was the idea of how much time was stolen. I was supposed to be able to have 35 more late nights working at the campus newspaper, where somehow, despite our shenanigans and dance breaks, we produced a paper every night. I won’t be able to hug my younger coworkers goodbye and tell them I can’t wait to see the amazing things they’ll do next year, after I leave, and remind them I’m only a text away from their questions about where I keep the time cards.

I was supposed to have seven more Friday nights of cooking and polishing off bottles of wine with my friends. Now we’ll have to hoist cheers through FaceTime and hope no one’s WiFi cuts out.

And we will, and life will go on.

Several hours later, I closed my computer and shut off my Slack notifications. I emerged from my room and reheated last night’s pizza for dinner for my mom and me. For dessert, we had tiramisu.

There may be a global pandemic going on right now, but tadpoles will keep swimming, and Italians will keep making tiramisu.

And life will go on.

Anna Zarra Aldrich is a senior at the University of Connecticut studying journalism, political science and English. She plans to pursue a Ph.D. in English after graduating in May. She is from Wallingford.