What Togetherness Day Means To Me
by Leah Cypess
What Togetherness Day Means To Me
Sara Greenberg: 7th Grade
Togetherness Day is important to me because once it's over, it will be a whole year before I have to go through Togetherness Day again.
Just kidding, Mr. Paterson. Not because I don't mean it, but because if I don't get a good grade in your class, my mom won't let me run track this semester.
I love track, even though I didn't think I would. I was forced to choose a sport (just like I'm being forced to write this essay) and all the sports with VR components make my head hurt. Dad says I'm being too sensitive, that if I just got through a season I'd get used to the VR. But whenever he tries to push me, Mom jumps down his throat and says he doesn't know what it's like for me and football isn't what it was when he used to play.
"There's no such thing as team spirit," she says. "They use the phrase, and they think they know what it means, but they don't. It's just a pale, pathetic imitation of what sports used to be. Just like everything else in this life we all live. You think Sara doesn't sense that, deep down?"
Then they both get sad and leave me alone.
I know it seems like I'm getting off topic and not writing about Togetherness Day at all. Just keep reading, please. Trust the author, as you like to say. I know you mean Morrison and Avasthi and authors like that, but I'm the author of this ridiculous essay, so you have to trust me.
I love the track. The way it stretches and curves, the clean white lines, the thud of my feet in the utter silence. The wind in my unmasked face. It's a stroke of luck that I'm good at it. I'm not great, I know that (I would know even if my dad didn't tell me so on a weekly basis), but I'm good enough to get a practice slot on the old school grounds. That's really all I care about.
When I'm running, I can think about difficult things and they don't feel so difficult. Usually I think about what I'm going to focus on in high school, and how to break it to my parents that it's not going to be virology. (I've rehearsed about three million speeches, without yet coming up with one that will work.) But this past week, while I ran, I thought about Togetherness Day.
At first I was just dreading it and trying to figure out ways to get through it, but eventually I started thinking about the future. About how when my generation is the one forcing kids to take sports and grading their English paper and whatever else it is that adults spend their time on, we're going to get rid of Togetherness Day altogether.
Imagine that. No more of that stupid "Forgot How To Feel Lonely" song playing in the background of every conversation. No more assemblies about how amazing things were in the old days, how we kids can't understand what it was like, but don't worry, you're still going to spend a lot of hours explaining it to us. No more drives to raise money for more research and more programs and more ways to "get back what humanity has lost."
We'll keep the concerts, though. I have to admit the Togetherness concert is always awesome. (Well, almost always. Letting the Leptons do the lead song last year was not the best choice. And yeah, that genuinely is off-topic, but it had to be said.) We'll have the concert, but without the endless speeches about how much better things would be if, instead of hearing the music come crisp and clear from my speakers in the comfort of my own room, I had to pack together with thousands of other people (ugh) and try to make out some strands of singing over all the screaming. About how someday, we will be able to do exactly that, because supposedly we're just a few scientific breakthroughs away. And also supposedly, once we can be physically together again, we'll actually want to.
