On March 12, just days after I had returned home to Boston to complete my final papers, I scrolled through Facebook and came across Wellesley Professor Dan Chiasson’s New Yorker article “The Corona Virus and the Ruptured Narrative of Campus Life.” In those days since I had left Chicago, I was struggling to articulate just what I was feeling about this sudden departure from campus—or “home,” as my iPhone’s camera roll now refers to it as.
With the weirdest tunnel vision, I scrambled to gather what felt like 400 books, hordes of paper with Jstor articles I had barely touched throughout the quarter, and a few pieces of clothing that I liked. I hadn’t had time to say goodbye to my friends, my professors, or the corners of campus that meant the most to me. As a Type 1 diabetic, all I knew was that I just had to come home; I get sick really easily, I am deeply immunocompromised, and my parents just didn’t want me to be stuck in a place where they were not during this time of uncertainty. This exam period felt different than others; rather than rushing to finish my papers, I was instead trying to get out of a city that had grown to mean so much to me. I felt rather empty, like my insides had been hollowed out and thrown away without my permission, without even giving me time to think.
Eleanor Citron is a student at the University of Chicago, studying history and human rights.
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