Since January, I can count all the people I’ve met up with in person on one hand. To tell you the truth, I’ve coped with it the same as most people. Sometimes I feel lonely, sometimes I feel stressed, and sometimes I feel like it’s possible the world actually ended three months ago, but I haven’t looked outside to see it. But I think the weirdest feeling of all is when I feel hopeful. With the sun out lately and summer finally arriving, I’ve been looking forward to a life ‘post-covid’, or at least, the closest we can get to that. One thing that has me feeling especially hopeful for next year is actually being able to see all of our lovely Niteline volunteers, most of which I’ve only ever seen on zoom.

You’d wonder how we manage to keep such close friendships between volunteers with all the lockdowns we had. Honestly, its a lot of zooms and voice notes. As someone who only started training with Niteline in August of this year, I’ve been lucky to make so many friends through Niteline, albeit through a screen. So how do I imagine a post-covid world with Niteline Dublin? I imagine I’ll be surprised at a lot of people’s heights, first of all. But I’m currently spending my days being excited to just catch up over a coffee, go on walks with friends and maybe even finally meet up for drinks once in a while. Even though for a lot of people it’ll be the first time we’ve ever met in person, after a long year of zoom social events and Facebook messenger calls, I know nothing will have changed.

I’ve spent most of the last year hearing how fun things ‘normally’ are from the volunteers that have been here for years. But joining Niteline has been the highlight of my year this year. Whether in person or online, the people at Niteline are some of the most supportive and caring people I know. So imagining a post covid world with Niteline Dublin is fairly easy for me. It’ll be the same great group of people, I’ll just finally know how tall everyone is.

While we cannot know what things are going to be like for the next year, I would still highly recommend applying to volunteer with NiteLine Dublin. I have met the sweetest, funniest people from being a volunteer and it has truly been a highlight of my college experience. Just head on over to the “Join Us’ section on our website and fill out our application form!