On Aug. 16, we will be going back to school. I’ll be a junior in high school. To me that seems impossible.

It’s been over a year since we all left for spring break and didn’t come back. An entire year of my high school career that has been ripped from my grasp. The idea that in August I’ll be walking into my third year of high school completely baffles me.

In my head, I’m still that silly little freshman girl who couldn’t be happier to get out of middle school. There’s no way it’s been two years, right?

Maybe that’s normal, to not notice the time passing or maybe the quarantines and the at-home learning can make it seem like the time never passed at all.

The end of my freshman year was chaos. I sat in my room and stared at my computer and tried to learn something — anything — from the videos and assignments my teachers were sending me. I couldn’t see my friends or go to work or even visit my grandparents. It was hard.

So, when school started up again in the fall, we were given the choice to either go back to school or continue learning online. For me there was no question about it.

I was going back to school. Several of my friends did inperson with me, but many didn’t.

It was different for sure, wearing masks and trying to distance ourselves. I missed my friends and I didn’t like this strange new learning situation.

During the first semester of my sophomore year, I was quarantined three times. Three two-week periods of online learning. The last time was the week of midterms. It was awful. I couldn’t focus or motivate myself to get out of bed, much less learn anything. I would get so anxious I couldn’t even think. It was exhausting. I could never imagine doing that all the time.

Most people had come back to in-person school by the end of the first semester. Many of my friends were there and we were able to socialize outside of school more. I was working again and playing varsity tennis. For me, things were getting better.

There were still plenty of struggling online students though. Many of them were not doing too well keeping up with their classes.

Online learning is hard, not only for students, but teachers, as well. It’s unknown territory for everyone. How can teachers teach through a computer and help their in-person students at the same time? How can students learn from a computer and keep up with their peers who are there inperson?

I saw too many of my online friends fail their classes, not do their work, and pretty much just give up. How can you stay motivated and learn what you need to with no one there to help you?

Students need to see their teachers and be able to talk to them. We need to be in class for the face-to-face instruction.

The option of remote learning may have been necessary last year and it helped some people, but we need to go back to school.

I’ve lost too much of my teenage years already. We all have. We need to move on and try to get back to normal. Coming back to school may be a good first step.