Guest Editorial: Gone with the blink of an eye

Sixteenth birthdays, driver’s licenses and graduations; a student’s biggest accomplishments, the biggest milestones, all gone in the blink of an eye. 

Sitting at home for what was expected an extended spring break turned into not going into school for a year for some. Senior year, gone.  

The year everyone has waited for, what was said to be the best of high school by our teachers, parents, and those who graduated before us. 

We could no longer freeze with our friends under the lights at a Friday night football game, could no longer go on midnight drives in a car full of our friends blasting music with the windows down. 

Summer parties turned into quarantine, long hikes, and at home workouts. Anything to keep ourselves busy and not focus on the fact that we were losing our teenage years to a pandemic. 

(A student of Chris Evans at Owego Free Academy in his Creative Writing class, Elyza Benedict is one of several trying to encapsulate their “losses” this year.)