Through the pandemic, I have been here, yet I have not. I have been connected to everyone at once, and no one at all. Through the internet, we have been able to maintain communication while distanced, but it made me feel lost to the vastness of the internet. Now that we are returning, it feels like we all have to crawl our way back into the real world and renavigate how to interact with people.

Coming back to campus after spending so long online feels like I have to crawl through the vastness of the internet to return to the real world, after having been lost to it. While I can return to some classes in person, I am not completely free from zoom meetings and being distanced from those I love, and it’s hard to tell who, the online me or the physical me, is my most real self anymore.