“With all this time on my hands, I’ve been asking myself, Who am I becoming? Who am I when no one is looking?”
Jaden Kim, Upper West Side
When school moved online, high-schooler Jaden Kim focused on discovering his identity in the midst of new daily disciplines.
I’m 15 years old and currently a sophomore at the High School for Math, Science, and Engineering (HSMSE). It’s on 137th and Convent in Manhattan, but unfortunately, these days we have to resort to school online.
It wasn’t bad at first, because it’s a requirement to have your cameras on, so I was still able to see my friends. But it’s drastically different than going to school in-person. I guess the benefit is I do get to sleep a bit more, but I’m just sitting at my desk for the entire day. You spend more energy just staring at a screen.
With all this time on my hands, I’ve been asking myself, Who am I becoming? In school, there are so many kids who have different approaches to who they are. Some go in with the mindset of being solely focused on math, or on science, like with our medical program with Mount Sinai Hospital. Some already know they want to go to a specific college. And then there are others who I can tell are smart, but are more like, “I’ll just see where the wind takes me,” and are more focused on the present.
I’ve been discovering that my identity in Jesus means asking, What can I do that honors Him? And I think that during COVID-19, He’s been giving me a sense of that kind of vision for my life. I’ve been discovering things I never thought I had a passion for.
Since COVID started, I’ve found a pretty good routine. I’ve been going for three-mile runs in Central Park every morning when I can. There’s this path I discovered when running with my cross country team. It’s a gravel path that takes you all the way through to the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, and then I turn around and run back to where I started. Sometimes, there’s another route I run instead toward the panther statue. It’s my sanctuary.
I definitely feel God’s presence when I run. There’s a course at Van Cortlandt Park where we compete that’s surrounded by forest. We run on cool, fall days, so it feels nice. And looking around, it’s beautiful. I almost forget that I’m racing, and because I’m not even conscious of my time, I end up going faster. There’s also times when I’m like, Man, my legs are gonna kill me, or, I’m so tired. But somehow, I don’t stop.
I’ve also been spending a lot more time with my family. I really love the rhythm that we’ve created. We’re maintaining our morning devotionals, and then at night we have family time together, whether it’s playing board games, or just talking. TV-wise, there’s new shows that we’ve discovered. We just finished Seinfeld on Hulu. My dad’s a huge Seinfeld fan. We also do these culture nights, as my mom calls them, where we read poetry and listen to the news. We’ve even started to write our own poetry.
I see God’s presence as simply being in the company of my family. It’s surprising, but I’m a sophomore already. So it’s like, I really need to make this time count.
We’re starting to go back to school in-person once a week. Every grade has a specific day they go in, and Wednesday is when the sophomores go in. I’m pretty excited, but I’m also kind of scared because COVID spreads faster indoors. It feels like I’m flipping a coin. But I’m thankful, because I haven’t seen most of my friends in a while. I have friends who’ve talked about how, during quarantine, they were getting distracted easier online, or having a hard time with the uncertainty. I’m new to this too, but I’ll always have an open heart for my friends.
I’ve been going through a book with my family by Richard J. Foster called Renovaré. One of the takeaways I had was about being a little Christ. My initial reaction was, Dang, that’s going to be so hard during COVID when I can’t even meet people in-person, but it’s like, that shouldn’t stop me. I just have to trust that God will provide me with opportunities. I have to continue to live my holy life. Especially today, because no one’s going to be watching you during COVID. So it’s like, Who am I when no one is looking? Am I keeping up with the same disciplines as before? That’s really important to me, just to continue to be the same man I am in front of others as I am at home.
