“I wanna have the same last dream again, the one where I wake up, and I’m alive.” This is the first line from one of my favorite songs, called The Adventure, by Angels and Airwaves. It’s a song I listen to quite often, and this opening line I’ve always heard, or overlooked. But then, a crisis emerged, one that we would experience only once in our lifetimes. Before we knew it, the world ground to a halt; completely shut down. Everything we knew, and everything we did, was suddenly gone. Everything we took for granted suddenly vanished. Then, the line made sense. It had meaning to me for the first time, and I could feel its power, and how it relates to what we’re all going through now. This is the story of how one line has delivered a sincere, and clear, message.
Part 1: The Dream Itself
It all started in January, the month after the new, and infamous, Coronavirus was discovered and began to spread around the world. Everybody thought nothing of it, and we went about our daily lives. I was just having another day at my small private school, where I had been for only about a year, and I had mixed feelings about the place. By that time, I wasn’t enjoying myself anymore, and I had outgrown the small community. The school had turned to rust, because it felt like every day was the same, and the challenges were sparse. That was before the dream, when I thought that attending a private school was as good as it would get.
But then, a new possibility emerged, a new room that I hadn’t seen before. It was the end of another day, and as I got changed after physical education, I read my text messages. I found that I had the opportunity to enroll at a new school, High Tech High Mesa. At first, this different school system seemed like a distant, and near impossible, endeavor. As a matter of fact, my family had been trying to get me into this school system for years. But now, the possibility wasn’t as far away as before. There was a catch however, and that was despite my liking for the private school diminishing, I couldn’t just leave, and it was hard to part with the old school. The small music program was the hardest, as I was the lead player in the orchestra, having played cello for about six years. The other hard part to leave behind was that the school was like a large family, where everyone knew each other. It took me a few days to make my final decision, but in the end, I opted to leave my small private school behind, in light of something far more superior, and memorable.
But then I realized that my decision was one of the best ones I could have possibly made. Upon my arrival at my new school, I entered the best dream I’ve had to date. However, it was in the middle of the night. I found myself with a challenge no one else had, getting caught up. To make the situation even more difficult, I had to go to my old school to finish finals, and close out my time there. However, the process took about only two weeks, and I quickly became one of the top people, academically, in my class. All of the sudden, school seemed easy, and I actually began to like education. I used to have a rough reputation, and felt unstable at times. But now, I felt like I was on top of the world. Most importantly to me, I actually had friends at this new school, something that seemed impossible at every other school I was at before. The hands-on, project-based learning made the experience even better for me. Little did I know that this sudden change would affect something else I do outside of school.
Outside of school, I’m a model railroader, and part of a 6,000 square foot model train layout in Balboa Park, known as the La Mesa Model Railroad Club. It was a voluntary effort, and up to my point of entry at the new school, I felt pressured, and wasn’t being myself. This affected my overall performance there, and it led to inadvertent consequences. However, similar to my new school, I was now satisfied and I became more relaxed instead of stressed. The train club became yet another happy place for me, just like it was supposed to be when I first joined in 2017.
By now, I felt like I was living my life to the fullest, and became the person I originally hoped to become. My entire life was a dream, and it changed course significantly in a short amount of time. Amazingly, my life changed from a simple yes or no question, like a light switch being turned on. My life was changing, and it would be altered again far too soon, as I met an obscure disposition, one that I still don’t understand.
Part 2: Longing for Return
Unfortunately, like all dreams, this one was short-lived and I would soon find myself back in the same boat I got out of. I woke up, as if in a nightmare, on March 13th, a rainy Friday. This would be the last of my good days, as of now. While working on our small farm, during physics, I got some interesting news. The news would turn my life upside down, and take me back down the road that I hated, and didn’t want to return to. It was a different situation though, one outside of my hands, and one nobody saw coming, nor faced before. It was a situation about the Coronavirus, and two vital parts of my life were about to come to a screeching halt. By now the new Coronavirus, infamously named COVID-19, was spreading rapidly internationally. The disease was spreading violently, and unforgivingly, like the 2018 Mendocino Complex Fire in Northern California, which burned about 500,000 acres, and was deemed California’s largest wildfire. I was hearing about this virus, and its threat, but I thought it was distant, and that it wouldn’t, under any situation, spread violently. But little did I realize that my life over the next few months would be shaped around distance.
The news was from Brett, High Tech High Mesa’s principal. It was bomb-dropping, and I learned that school would be closed for 3 weeks, due to the Coronavirus, which I then learned became a pandemic, a word I had never even heard of before. It was a possibility at first, but then became much more than we all thought of. The same day, and weeks before, my new found friends and I made jokes over the virus, and it became a regular concept of humor. But then, it wasn’t a joke anymore, and everybody was caught off guard. The rain was to fall for the next week or so, bringing the end to our good weather, and the best six weeks I have ever experienced.
At first, the knowledge of being out of school for 3 weeks wasn’t any issue. But the same day, as I sat in advisory, I learned that the La Mesa Model Railroad Club was to shut down also, meaning that all I had to look forward to was nothing. Absolutely nothing, a phrase to describe complete emptiness. Then it hit me, what I once thought was never going to affect me on a personal level had suddenly done what I thought it wouldn’t. However, there was still one source I had, the beach. I began going here regularly, until its eventual shutdown a few days later. Then, the century-long weeks began, as quarantine became a reality.
As I was gone from school, I got updates from another staff member in the High Tech High community. In every update, the possibility of returning on the set date of April 7th became more and more diminished. This followed after California Governor Gavin Newsom shared his opinion on how California schools may not reopen in the 2019-2020 school year, and then the stay-at-home order not long after. Eventually I got the inevitable news, stating that we wouldn’t be returning to school on April 7th, and that school would be moving online. My confidence at this point was damaged beyond repair; written off. My life became a nasty mess, and my school was reduced to online learning, like rubble, something nowhere near what it used to be. My happiness turned to anger, and I felt this all the time.
However, what angered me most was how I felt like a cursed child. For years, I hated school, and never found it effective. I always felt down, especially through middle school, and part of 9th grade. But then a sudden change led to new beginnings, and I finally found what I was looking for, the perfect learning environment. But because of something outside of my control, it was all taken away from me. It feels like a streak of bad luck, and that the entire ongoing crisis is centered around me.
It’s hard to tell whether or not my life is a mess, or that I’ve taken a loss. On the outside, it seems like I’m doing just fine. Both my parents are still employed and receiving paychecks, I have a roof over my head, and I eat three meals a day. However, right now, my life is a tale of two worlds.
The first is the outside world, the one that makes it seem like I’m thriving, considering the current circumstances. However, nobody has to scratch the surface very far to find the reality of how I feel inside. The other world is the one deep inside of me, acting as the complete opposite, making me feel insecure, and depressed, just like I was before I joined the High Tech school system. This place is one that gets my hopes up and crushes them, as well as giving me the feeling of being cursed. While it may seem like life, externally, is far more important than what happens inside, the mental mind is one that is far more powerful, and controlling.
This simultaneous collision of two worlds reminds me of a book I read called With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo. This book talks about a teenage mom who’s a talented chef, and has experienced many ups and downs in her life. However, through the journey of a culinary arts class her senior year, Emoni, the book’s main character, experienced a dramatic change to her life. Throughout the story, she followed her culinary dreams passionately, and eventually took a trip to Spain, to further expand her knowledge about culinary arts. This experience ended up making her a far better person overall. On the outside, before, she felt over confident, and on the inside insecure. However, through culinary arts, her two worlds formed together into one. I’m hoping that the COVID-19 experience will help me grow overall, and make my two worlds form together into one, but only time will tell.
My life was great, like a dream, a new reality. But then, as it was taken away from me, I longed to return to that dream I once had. I lost everything from the Coronavirus, and it gave me much difficulty in continuing on. Unfortunately, the reality is that my life won’t ever exactly be the same, just like I want it to be. What’s disappointing is that reality always wins over a dream, but all I want to do is relive that lively dream again. Maybe someday I will, but that all depends on what you, the reader, does to change the route of this dangerous crisis.