Hannah Johnson ‘21

Chief Eggplant Editor

I don’t know what else to do…I thought I would write this for myself in the hopes that I would see it again on Friday the sixth. At the time of writing this, it’s Tuesday, the day before the election, and I just feel…lost. In his “The Days Ahead” email, Fr. Boroughs said “Remember, whatever happens on November 3, there will be a November 4,” but… I don’t know. I’m not sure.

Why me? Why us? Why is this year so bad??? Pandemic, wildfires, protests, and somehow it’s all climaxing with a tense election. Forgive me if I act a little bit unnerved at the news headlines: gun sales surging ahead of the election…the civil unrest is palpable. It’s a very uncomfortable time…very unsettling.

And…where does that leave me? You’d think that it’s a great time to be a satirical writer, right? While the country is this messy and we are all dealing with a pandemic? And while we, as Holy Cross students, have been forced into online classes? At some point–in complete honesty–it just stopped being funny. For me, I probably got hit the hardest when the virus broke out while I was in Russia. My study abroad program was pulled and I was on a plane back to the States in a matter of days. That was a lot–and that was just MARCH. AND THEN. 2020. KEPT. GOING.

Yeah, we can still look at ourselves and our situation and laugh and joke, sad-clown style. But if we’re not kidding ourselves too much, it really did go from a horrible joke to an unending nightmare in the first few months of this accursed year. And then it just kept going. We had to continue this year. We went back to school. My theory is that normalcy and sanity vanished along with the concept of time in that month. Since then, our void we have lived in has had no real sense of time nor reprieve. 

While thinking about becoming the Eggplant chief, I envisioned myself being like the brand new young professor, who is energetic and passionate and super excited to teach, with all kinds of activities and presentations and gimmicks to use to make learning super fun for the students. But, rolling into fall 2020 as the Eggplant chief, I feel I’m more like a super grizzled old professor–worn and battle-scarred from fighting the dinosaurs–teaching a bland old lecture entirely too quickly and occasionally taking drags from a cigarette in the middle of class. Oh, to have my youth, vigor, and optimism back. Life takes a toll on you…living through 2020 takes a toll on you. You think things are funny right now? Oh, you sweet, summer child…