Going back to school caan seem really overwhelming. For some people, it’s totally exciting to be able to go to school. For others, it can seem unnecessary because hey, we’ve made it this far, haven’t we? Either way, a change in environment can have a lot of different effects on a person’s mental health.

Think of a fish. Fish live out their days in little plastic containers in the front of a pet store aisle, watching people all day choose their birds and ferrets. Once in a while, however, someone decides to buy a pet fish. Now, this fish has lived for a long time — at least, a long time in their eyes — in the front of a store aisle. They don’t expect to be uprooted and moved to a new environment. The fish gets taken to the person’s home and put into a bigger tank with rocks and fake plants and little figurines.

That is a huge undertaking for a little fish. Every single student at BHS has been doing their school work from home, which is weird and can feel very lonely at times, but has slowly become more and more normal over the past nine months. To be taken from your dining room table and put back into a classroom with people you haven’t seen in over a year is a kind of transition that no one has really had to make before.

Whatever kind of effect this moving back into school has on you, make sure you are kind to yourself. People focus a lot on being kind to other people, but sometimes you have to work harder to learn to be kind to yourself. This is a kind of change that no one has experience dealing with. We are all learning together. It can feel hopeless, or it can feel exciting. Either way, remember that you are a small fish, finally getting into the bigger tank where you belong. If you decide not to go back to school, then that is where you are meant to be.