When my roommates and I envisioned senior year spring break, we saw ourselves on a beach in Florida.

In fact, we had had our trip planned since sophomore year. We saved up our money and decided where we would stay. We were going to have just finished our senior theses, and we were going to jaunt off to relax under the sun. It was going to be the perfect culmination after four years of hard work. 
But then the pandemic happened. While we were lucky enough to be able to come back to campus for our second semester, traveling anywhere is, of course, no longer safe. Senior year spring break had turned into five dispersed wellness days throughout the semester. We were promised no class, and an opportunity to relax. 

While it was not what we planned, my roommates and I have been determined to make the most of these wellness days. It would be easy to have random days in the middle of the week turn into a study session to catch up on work (and, sure, there has been some of that). But we really wanted to challenge ourselves to use our wellness days to... be well. 
We realized that we were seniors in our final months before graduation, and we still had things on our Boston bucket list! Maybe wellness days were the excuse we needed. So far, we have spent one wellness day celebrating our roommates' birthday. We decorated the room, ordered takeout from a restaurant we have wanted to try, got cupcakes from a local bakery, and we even made a trip to a nearby plant nursery to pick out some new houseplants! The other wellness day, we rented a Zipcar and took a trip to Harvard's Arnold Arboretum to have a picnic on a rare nice day. 
This year has been hard on so many people in so many ways. My roommates and I have been very conscious about creating moments for joy amidst the challenges. In these moments, we are creating college memories that will last a lifetime. It may not be the memories we expected, but they are special nonetheless.