Note: For the privacy of my old friends, names have been changed in this story.
In second grade, you don’t know much about the world. You don’t know who is in office or who you are going to grow up to be. You don’t know what the latest news is or why everyone is obsessed with that celebrity. What you do know are the names of your friends, & you know when they are not speaking to you.
Second grade was already a difficult year. My friend, Maya, had already decided I wasn’t as cool as she thought, & she had moved on to a new girl to hang out with at recess. My crush found out I liked him & had been avoiding me for weeks. And I had spoken out in class about my special ability to see atoms & molecules, only to discover that wasn’t possible & the fuzzy things I saw on the walls were a sight impediment.
But the worst day was when I came to lunch, & my friends refused to talk to me. I didn’t understand what I had done wrong. I implored Avery & Charlotte, the two brunettes across from me, to please speak with me, to tell me how to make things right. But they remained silent as stone. The following day, they didn’t even give me a chance to speak with them. Instead, they sat at another table with Maya & her new clique, & I was left alone.
Hot tears burned my eyes as I gulped down the sob in my throat. I didn’t understand. I thought I had finally made some real friends. I had spent nearly my first three years of elementary school friendless, but Avery had been the girl to reach out to me one lonely day at recess & spark a friendship that I thought would last forever. Charlotte had been introduced to me not long after, & the three of us, I thought, were inseparable. Even when Maya had decided I was no longer worth her time & had abandoned me to hang out with Aria, Avery & Charlotte had remained by my side. But now, I was alone once again, & it felt even worse than before.
Friday evening, I came home from school with tears streaming down my face. I sat at my dining room table & asked my mother what I had done wrong. She said she was confused because Avery & Charlotte had planned to come over to play that afternoon. When their mothers’ cars pulled into the driveway, my mother told me not to talk about what had happened.
“Just play with Avery & Charlotte as if everything is fine,” my mother said. “Maybe they will forget about whatever they were upset about, & you can all be friends again.”
When Avery & Charlotte came inside, they were strangely silent & shifty. I asked if they wanted to go to the playhouse outside, & they agreed quietly. Together, we trudged down the steep hill in my backyard to the bright yellow & purple playhouse. Just before we reached the structure, I heard Avery & Charlotte stop walking. I froze, unsure if they would follow me inside or not. I could hear them whispering amongst themselves, & I felt myself grow cold, wondering if they were making fun of me.
“Tyler,” Avery called.
“Yeah?” I turned & immediately they lunged at me, their hands in the air, large grins on their faces.
“Surprise,” they shouted. I gaped at them, confused.
“What,” I asked.
“Happy birthday,” they exclaimed. I stared, still confused, & then slowly a smile grew across my face.
“You threw me a surprise party,” I asked, bewildered.
“Yeah, come on!” Avery said. The two of them grabbed my hands & dragged me inside to where my mother had decorated the house with banners & balloons.
“We’re sorry we didn’t talk to you this week,” Avery said. “We were so excited! We were worried we would let the surprise slip.”
“We knew your birthday was this weekend, & we wanted to surprise you,” Charlotte said.
In second grade, you don’t know what the latest advances in medicine are, or where you are going to go to college. You also don’t know the proper etiquette for throwing a surprise party. But you do know who your true friends are, & you know just how special it is to have people who want to make you feel loved.
When the novel coronavirus changed the world in March, it was difficult to imagine what a future would look like. I took my life day by day, watching, observing, and trying to construct some form of comfort and continuity in my life.
In the five months that have passed since that time, it has still been a struggle to find solace in a world that is rapidly changing around me. I have spent far too much time trying to plan for a future that is still mostly unknown. The few things that have brought me some consolation are the people in my life and the adventures I have taken now that my schedule is oddly free. It was these two things that brought me to Pennsylvania.
Traveling during the coronavirus can be daunting, especially when restrictions are constantly changing. However, after checking the latest travel restrictions this past week, I made plans to visit the state just next door to me where two people I was very excited to see are currently living.
Since the start of the pandemic, I have not seen any friends in person. Apart from my new fiancé and a few of his family members, I have socially distanced myself from everyone. I have heard it has been suggested to call social distancing “physical distancing” to encourage people to still have social interactions through less conventional means, such as Zoom or FaceTime. Unfortunately, in my case, physical distancing really did become social distancing – text messages went unanswered and video calls became less frequent as people have grown tired of the constant screen time and so little authentic time spent with people.
Caitlin & me at Stevenson University’s Relay for Life in 2018
So, when Caitlin and Mark agreed to meet for dinner in their town of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, I jumped at the chance to do a little more traveling and see two people I have dearly missed.
Caitlin and I became friends my first year at Stevenson University, and we have been close ever since. She invited me to come with her to Campus Crusade for Christ, an organization on campus focused on helping college students grow in their faith. It was there that I met Mark, who was one of the leaders in the club. The following year, Caitlin and Mark started dating. It was obvious from the beginning of their relationship that the two of them were perfect for one another. This past June, just 10 days after my own engagement, Mark proposed. So, this dinner was not just one to catch up, but to celebrate the life milestone we had all taken very recently.
Joseph and I woke up early Saturday morning to get a jumpstart on our traveling. It is on our bucket list to visit all 50 states, and this was our chance to cross Pennsylvania off our list.
In order to officially say we visited a state, there are a couple of things we have agreed we need to do. We have to explore a main street, eat (or drink) at a local restaurant, hike at a national park, and visit a tourist or scenic spot. Once we have done all of these things, we can go to a local Starbucks to buy our “Been There” series mug.
So far this summer, we have visited Colorado, Maryland and Virginia. Suffice it to say, I was very excited to add a fourth mug to our collection that has been growing on my windowsill.
Our first stop was Gettysburg National Military Park, a place shrouded in American history. The morning was thankfully still cool when we began our relaxed, four-mile hike on the Johnny Reb Trail. The paved path wound through cemeteries and monuments commemorating the lives of fallen soldiers and to tell the story of the Battle of Gettysburg. Stone statues marked the spots where the infantry moved during the fight. According to the National Park Service website, the Battle of Gettysburg was a turning point during the Civil War that helped secure the eventual victory of the Union. Known for being the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, it was this particular battle that inspired President Lincoln’s famous “Gettysburg Address.”
Our next stop was Starbucks. It was a little early in the day to already be buying our mug, but we knew we wouldn’t check off all our destinations until that night, and since it was now late morning, we were both desperate for coffee. We bought our mug and two lattes, and then we headed to downtown Gettysburg to walk Steinwehr Avenue, our main street of choice for the day.
While we had been hiking, I had seen people dressed in nineteenth-century style clothing. I had assumed these people were tour guides or people doing reenactments at the park. However, as we walked down the street, we saw multiple people dressed in the same garb. Some played the part of their costume, talking as if they had just stepped off the battlefield, while others I caught checking their cell phones that they had hidden away in their petticoats. Either way, their attire alongside the classic architecture and shops filled with historical artifacts created an immersive experience I thoroughly enjoyed.
After walking around town, we drove to Lancaster. Our dinner reservation was not for a few hours, but we had bought tickets to ride on the Strasburg Railroad, the oldest continuously operating railroad in the country. According to the Strasburg Railroad website, the railroad was founded in 1832 to transport both freight and passengers across Pennsylvania. Neither Joseph nor I had ever ridden on a train before. We excitedly boarded the bright red locomotive and sat across from each other on the bench seats. When the whistle blew and the train chugged out of the station, we stuck our heads out of the windows to feel the wind against our faces and to watch the corn fields whizz past.
While riding, we were treated to learning a bit of Pennsylvania history, culture and superstition. We were told that it had been this train that had taken Abraham Lincoln and his wife, Mary, to his inauguration in 1861. Unfortunately, a mere four years later, it was also the train that had taken Mary and the body of the deceased president back home. Out our windows, we were able to see Amish farmers working in the fields while we learned from our tour guide about the plain lifestyle. Almost halfway through our trip, the train came to a full stop, and our guide encouraged us to be very quiet so we could hear the ghost whistle of the engine on the Lancaster, Oxford and Southern Railway, which has been out of service since 1918. Our train’s whistle pierced the air, and without a second’s delay, another whistle answered.
“Is it an echo,” I asked Joseph at the same time he turned to me and posed the same question.
“Did someone ask if it was an echo,” our tour guide asked jovially over the loudspeaker. “I am so disappointed. We pay that farmer 27 dollars a day just to whistle back at us.” I laughed, unsure if the guide was joking or not. I guess we will never know for sure if it is an echo, another whistle, or if there really is a ghost locomotive riding the rails in Pennsylvania.
We had a little extra time between the end of our ride and dinner, so we headed to downtown Lancaster to walk another main street. As soon as we stepped out of the car, a candy store caught my eye. I ran to it like an excited child while Joseph lagged behind.
Sweetish Candy is a Swedish candy and hygge shop that sells imported Scandinavian goods, including a plethora of sweets made with wholesome ingredients. Entranced by all the goodies, we bought two bars of Icelandic bitter chocolate made with Icelandic sea salt and bourbon vanilla. After spending so much time roaming around the shop we had very little left to explore the main street, so we headed back to our car to go to dinner. A nearby gas station bathroom served as our spot to get ready, so when we walked into the restaurant, we looked as if we had not been running around in the humid Pennsylvania heat all day.
We met Cait and Mark at Loxley’s, a popular, upscale restaurant in Pennsylvania. To enter, we walked across a bridge that overlooked a manmade pond filled with ginormous lily pads and big, bright orange fish. Our friends, who had arrived a few minutes before us, were seated on the patio outside. We greeted each other with hugs and exclamations of congratulations. As our waiter, Jonah, served us drinks and appetizers, Caitlin and I studied each other’s rings while we all had the chance to share the stories of our proposals and how life and wedding planning has been going since then. Once dinner was served, we turned the conversation to what post-graduation life has been like, to our work lives, and to sharing how general life during a pandemic has affected each of us. The world grew dark around us as we continued talking long after the plates had been cleared and our glasses had emptied, enjoying the experience of finally being able to talk with close friends without a screen placed between us.
As Cait and I both began to yawn, Joseph and Mark called an end to the evening. We hugged goodbye, promising to visit again soon, and then each returned to our own cars. On the drive home, I felt a sense of peace that I have not yet experienced since the beginning of the pandemic. Life has not returned to normal, and I don’t think it ever will, but the day’s adventures had been a reassurance that this new way of living can still be just as enjoyable and exciting.
Traveling through a place filled with history was a reminder to me of just how much the world has changed and how much it will continue to change throughout my life. Walking around town surrounded by people in bonnets and top hats reminded me that wearing a mask is simply the latest change in fashion, and to be perfectly honest, I would happily choose to wear that than the corsets I saw those other women donning. Like the first gunshot fired during a war, the novel coronavirus changed the world as we know it forever, and we are now in the midst of understanding what this new world will be like. However, in the thick of all this uncertainty, there are two things I now know for sure that have given me hope: First, that life is always changing, so the best way to live life to the fullest is to embrace the new and seek to find ways to still confront and encounter even more novel experiences. And secondly, it will always be the people in my life and the relationships I have built that will bring me comfort in times of elation and struggle, and though it may try, social distancing cannot take that away from me.
Life is not what it used to be, but hopefully, with a little mindset shift and perhaps a little extra effort, we can make it even better than what we ever envisioned.
P.S. Joseph has launched his vlog! Check out his perspective of today’s events by watching the video below. If you like it, please consider subscribing to his YouTube channel – every follow helps.
