Many of us haven’t been on campus in months, some of us not since March 2020. Others have never set foot on campus before. What was once common ground for all Trinity students is now unfamiliar territory, first-years and seniors alike getting lost on their way to classes and giddy to see friends.

The past few weeks have been a learning experience for everyone on campus, especially for those of us who have said goodbye to our faculty and administrative leaders during a year that needs them more than ever.

Students far and wide are experiencing new beginnings, regardless of whether or not they are a wide-eyed first-year or a senior with one foot out the door. Here, at Trinity, we’re all back on campus for the first time since March 2020, seeing our peers in masks and attending Zoom meetings in between in-person classes. As much as things are going back to “normal,” they are anything but.

Our newsroom is no stranger to this. We’ve printed our first paper, the first print copy of the Trinitonian to be released since fall of last year. In the process, we’ve been presented with obstacles left and right. We started the semester without our beloved longtime Campus Publications adviser, Katharine Martin, who retired this spring, and put together pages in the basement of Coates for the first time since before the pandemic. What was once a demanding job is still just that, now with new elements added to the course.

Every day, each of us is faced with a myriad of challenges and changes that can be exhausting to balance.

Despite these, we come out strong — as individuals and as the groups we surround ourselves with.

We’re empowered by our friends, whom many of us are seeing in person for the first time in over a year. Our professors are eager to be back in the classroom, grateful to be teaching human faces rather than a gallery of black screens and camera-less names. Student organizations and groups are reconvening, being given the opportunity to build in-person bonds once again.

If the pandemic and the changes it has brought to our everyday lives have taught us anything, it’s to be kind to ourselves and others. As we face loss, hardship and challenges unlike ever before, the least we can do is give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. Nobody’s social, academic, physical or mental performance is going to be on par with that from before the pandemic. Right now, all we can do is grant ourselves and others the needed understanding and support to jump each hurdle we face, one day at a time.