The strangest thing about our pandemic school year is how normal it feels

This First Person article is the experience of Julia Ibelings, a high school student in Montreal. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

In a normal year, I wouldn't be thinking about the past so much, about how things could have been better. As someone about to graduate high school, I'm supposed to look ahead to all the exciting things that come next. But it's hard to stop over-analyzing when there's not much else to do.

The weirdest part about having my senior year in a pandemic wasn't that everything was cancelled, but how normal those cancellations felt. No last sports seasons, no grad trip, no last day of fun activities, no prom.

We really didn't get to have our senior year. Instead, we got Grade 10, Season 2.

If you had told me two years ago that I would only go to school every other day, and not get to play my last basketball season, I would tell you that you were crazy. And if you had mentioned I would not get a prom, I simply would not believe you. Yet, since September, losing out on these things has not once felt strange. I can't be in a classroom with more than 12 people? Well of course, how else can we keep the two-metre distance?

After a full year in a pandemic, everyone has now had a socially distanced birthday. It's not new anymore, just normal.

I know everyone has had a difficult time and many people have lost so much. But I think it is crucial to understand what it was like being 15 years old when the pandemic started — and now being two months away from turning 17. Those birthdays are more significant than my dad going from 56 to 58.

My friends and I joke that we are 15 turning 17 because it feels as if our sweet 16 year never happened. To miss out on being 16 is, in the long term, quite insignificant. But then again, Hollywood movies made every teenage character, ever, 16 years old.

Being 16 seems to be the definition of being a teenager, so missing out on experiences this year feels as if I didn't get to be a real teen.

My 19-year-old sister has never been to a bar. When she turned 18, it was just our parents and me beside her. She went to the SAQ to buy a sad, single White Claw. In my entire high school career, I have been to one house party. One! Not because I wasn't invited, but because the pandemic happened right in the middle of Grade 10, when people started to throw parties.

Whenever we actually could do something, it was exhausting because everything needed to be carefully planned out. Nothing was spontaneous anymore, in a stage of life where spontaneity should've consumed me.

Everything is different from what I thought it would be. But because of the pandemic, I am who I am.

I was really upset that the basketball season did not happen this year, after playing a lot over the summer. I was mad that the pandemic happened because it meant that I didn't get to play for my school team. But then again, if it was not for the pandemic, I would not have met my boyfriend.

Strangely enough, it was all that extra time on FaceTime and Instagram that brought us closer, when we couldn't see anyone in person.

He was the one who always wanted to play basketball. Since there was not much else to do, we spent most of our days on the basketball court. So, the pandemic gave me the time to become a better player, but also took away my chance to show everyone how much I improved.

Luckily, soon I will have my second vaccine and I will finally get to start a more autonomous life. I will not be seeing my mother at her desk all day. And when I ask to hang out with a friend, I will not have to add exactly where we are going, what we are doing and who we will be with.

After a full year of having so many restrictions, being able to get that freedom back feels a little strange. It has become such a habit to live in a pandemic. To the point that, no matter how excited I am to begin college in a "normal" way and have a "regular" summer, that freedom feels anything but ordinary.

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