Ah, the great outdoors. Trees and acorns, squirrels and racoons, more trees and more acorns. We have been lucky to have as our refuge the crisp late summer air and varied topiary of Saint Louis. Even as we have been more isolated inside, outside, where the breeze sweeps away viral particles, I can be more comfortable. But that time is over, or at least it is nearing its end. The dreaded damp grey hellscape of an urban midwestern winter is creeping in on us. Those yellow and orange leaves might look pretty, but they represent something far more sinister. Sadness, despair, hopelessness, fatigue, discomfort and gloom.

According to an USA TODAY report on college students with seasonal affective disorder, “The National Institute of Mental Health found in a 2011 nationwide survey that 30% of college students reported feeling ‘so depressed it was difficult to function.’” That statistic sounds bleak, and yet this survey was taken when you were allowed to see people indoors during winter. That is no longer the case. Now we do not even have each other—not really. You cannot convince me that any kind of social engagement on Zoom is enjoyable, let alone emotionally fulfilling. Humans are not designed for isolation; we are social animals.

We have not been getting better at doing this—at least I have not. I have been going insane. ‘Quarantine fatigue’ has been the new buzzword as people start letting little things slip through the cracks. When global crisis becomes the new normal, it becomes easier to ignore. But things are not getting better any time soon, and these little slips only make things worse. Winter is when viruses thrive, and the coronavirus will be no different . The United States has been seeing a steady uptick in cases, and so has Missouri. What happens when people do things on Halloween and Thanksgiving? People will travel, they will party, they will do all kinds of things that they are not supposed to—it’s not good but the reality is that the guidelines will get broken, and we will not see the consequences of it until much later.

But maybe I should focus back onto the micro, the day to day experience with “hybrid” learning. Winter will be awful. More people are living further away from campus and have to deal with longer commutes in the cold on foot. You cannot meet people in the park, you cannot sit outside and eat, you are still not on campus. Encapsulated in a bubble of perhaps a few people in an apartment. Think of living on the International Space Station, only allowed out of the ship for a few masked space spacewalks in an unbearable cold vacuum. Think of how inhuman, alien that life is. That is about where we are at right now, albeit with cozier conditions.

So how should you prepare for a long and terrible winter? Well I suppose you always have to look on the sunny side, even when the sun is not there. Perhaps you can take this opportunity to appreciate some of the beauty in winter that you might not have noticed before. I have made it no secret in previous articles how much I detest this season of death, but there is beauty in winter. There is opportunity to gain strength through adversity, as long as you do not let yourself get beaten down. But you made it this far—8 months since Spring Break ended and normality refused to return. What I am saying is winter will be bad, but nothing you cannot handle after everything else that has happened. Do not focus on the light at the end of the tunnel, it’s still too far away to see. Rather, force your eyes to adjust to the darkness, and, before you know it, it will be much easier to see.