It’s now been four years since the infamous COVID-19 pandemic began.

How time flies, huh?

It’s one of those things you remember where you were exactly when you heard the news that the world was shutting down and that the world would never be the same. It’s no different here.

I was a freshman at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville and in the middle of my second semester. It’s been documented that I wasn’t the best of students, but for whatever reason I managed to really hit my stride in school. I was doing quite well in comparison to the previous semester.

In that time, I remember talking to my roommate GT, who is still a good friend of mine to this day, and he and I were laughing over the fact that there was a “corona virus.” We thought it was a sickness someone got from drinking too much Corona beer (no this column is not sponsored).

As the weeks went on and COVID began to creep up, I had a couple of friends ask me what I thought about COVID and if it would affect us. Here was my answer.

“Ehhh… I don’t think it’ll be anything. It will probably be similar to Ebola in that it won’t have a widespread effect across the U.S. We’ll be fine.”

Lol.

We then get to March and I then hear in my dorm room that Tom Hanks has contracted this new, unfamiliar virus. I think that was the first moment we were all like ‘oh crap, this is sort of real.’ A few days later, NBA player Rudy Gobert got the virus, too, which then caused the NBA season to be suspended.

And there went the world as we knew it.

I remember walking back to my dorm room from the local Jimmy John’s (again, not sponsored) and wondering what the future was going to be like. The next thing I hear is that our upcoming spring break would be extended from one week to two weeks as the university monitored the situation.

I went back home for two weeks and went to work at my high school/college job Monticello Drugs. Within those two weeks, we shut the store down on the inside and ran a drive-thru only operation.

I could write a whole column on how I feel about that, and I’m sure I will, but I will just leave for now with the famous saying: “the rest was history.”

It’s so fascinating to sit back and reminisce about that time period. Seeing the world basically deserted is still something that I only thought I would see in a fictional, dystopian society. But yet, we lived through it.

As I sit back and reflect on the prominent COVID days, I see it in two different lights four years later.

I often viewed those days as lost time. After all, the pandemic took away half of what are supposed to be “the best years of my life.” It took away the chance to connect with my friends and finish what was supposed to be my best semester.

It also took away the chance to see my grandparents that were in the nursing home. And it also took away most sports and entertainment – though pro wrestling never stopped.

But I also see those days as the wake up call that I didn’t know I needed.

Moving back home for five months wasn’t in my BINGO card for 2020, but it allowed me to take some time to re-evaluate things. Without the pandemic, I’m not sure I would’ve finished school. That would have made it very unlikely I would be sitting here writing this column today.

It also gave me time to spend with my immediate family that I may not have otherwise had. I also got to see my dog Buddy everyday, which was something I definitely took for granted at the time now that he has passed.

And it gave me time to really just slow down for a change. In a world where we are constantly on the move, getting that break was nice.

Now here we stand four years later in 2024. Sometimes it feels like an eternity and other times and it feels like it just happened yesterday. Regardless, it’s always very neat to see what has changed since then. I wonder what this column will look like in 2028?

Evan Newton is the news editor of The News. He can be reached at enewton@covnews.com.