It’s no wonder that with continued masking, overcrowded hospitals, record-breaking case numbers and a plethora of ever-changing COVID-19 restrictions, I easily confuse the things I did last summer with the one prior. However, despite my sense of déjà vu, these past two summers have been wildly different from one another, and perhaps you feel the same way.

With the colder weather approaching and a never-ending to-do list of assignments, I can’t help but reminisce about summer, even if it was a summer that — to put it plainly — wasn’t much of a summer at all.

Summer 2021 was supposed to mark the return to normal. However, this past summer was anything but. Still, by comparing this past summer to the summer of 2020, I was able to learn a few valuable lessons.

I am astonished to think of how naive I was at the start of the pandemic.  

I thought lockdown would last a mere couple of weeks. Then, when the restrictions continued, I thought, “Okay, I’m sure this whole thing will be over before the summer.” 

Clearly, I was wrong.

So rather than placing bets on when COVID-19 would become a thing of the past, I spent the summer of 2021 embracing the uncertainty of the pandemic and accepting that a return to normal, whatever that means, might be too far-fetched. But I didn’t always think this way.

With travel bans and restrictions on social gatherings, there was no expectation to do anything at all during the summer of 2020, and it was nearly impossible to have any fun. To put it simply, my first pandemic summer was a write-off.

However, I took the excuse of being able to do nothing fun all summer, to do something less, well, summer-y. I seized the opportunity to do something that I otherwise wouldn’t have done, enrolled in a few online classes, and made great progress towards finishing my degree. If it weren’t for the pandemic, I probably wouldn’t have done this — my fear of missing out would have made it unbearable, but there was nothing to miss out on that summer anyways.

It wasn’t a very memorable summer filled with the usual camping and beach days, and to be honest, I wasn’t at all upset about it because I thought it would be my only pandemic summer.

Fast forward to spring of 2021 when COVID-19 vaccinations became widely available and I received my first vaccine dose in May. I was fairly confident that the remainder of summer would be wildly different from the one prior. I was correct, but not for the reason I had hoped.

It was different not because COVID-19 had suddenly disappeared, but because it wasn’t my first pandemic summer. I had already experienced one before, and the novelty of it had worn off.

I realized that the longer the pandemic lasts, the more it seems to be unacceptable to use it as an excuse to do nothing — and that’s because it shouldn’t be. 

Rather than lamenting yet another pandemic summer, I decided to make the most of it, despite many of the COVID-19 restrictions still in place. I refused to let the summer pass me by, silencing the “there’s always next year” attitude. 

I moved somewhere new, got a different job and spent my days off exploring the city and doing whatever I could — while remaining COVID-consious, of course — to make the summer a memorable one. 

From taking advantage of one pandemic summer and advancing my degree to making the most of the other, I learned that we don’t know how long, if ever, a return to normal will take. That’s why it’s important for us to embrace the uncertainty and not wait around for the situation to change, pandemic or otherwise, because we don’t know what the future holds.

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This op-ed was written by a University of Saskatchewan undergraduate student and reflects the views and opinions of the writer. If you would like to write a reply, please email opinions@thesheaf.com. Jakob is a third-year undergraduate student studying physiology and pharmacology, and the staff writer at The Sheaf Publishing Society.

Graphic: Jaymie Stachyruk | Graphics Editor