I always said I hated high school, but now as I sit in my bed reflecting on my home for four years, I rethink this statement. Through the ups and downs of high school, as much as you could say I seemed to have hated it, I would never ask for a better school to be an alumna of. 

High school for me was a lot of firsts. First football game, first homecoming, first actual 50 percent, first mental breakdown over work and so on. All my expectations and perfect scenarios that I made up in my head about how high school was supposed to be perfect, all seemed to vanish. Instead, I came face to face reality. It was then when I had to learn the idea of losing control. It wasn’t perfect, it was messy and every year felt like a test drive for me. It was 4 years of finding myself, my true self. Four years of accepting my life for the way it was. 

It took 4 years for me to realize I needed to slow down, to stop jumping to tomorrow or even next week. It made me realize that I need to get out of my brain and start living everyday in the present.

 As I sit here and think about the memories I am not able to make this year, it makes me cherish the ones I made even more. All those runs to CJ, the dreaded icebreakers in class, the walks I took around school instead of going to the bathroom, running to the senior lot while it was raining, the quick interactions with friends in the halls before running into class, it seems unreal that it is all coming to an end. And the most important thing that I’ve realized, is to not put anything off, if there is something you want to do, just do it but there will come a time when that won’t be an option anymore. But with all of that being said, every single experience that came from WCHS, whether good or bad made me who I am today. 

Nothing could quite prepare me for the experiences I would have in Room 243. I was used to being close with my classes, we made inside jokes, bonded with the teacher, but then after a semester we said our goodbyes. This was nothing like journalism. As cliche as this may sound, journalism was not a class for me. Those classmates were my family. It was those same classmates that all cried together while watching a movie about an elderly couple. It was those same classmates that became my best friends. Friends that stayed up with me until 2 in the morning talking about our lives, the same friends that were there for me even when I didn’t listen to their advice, that left a party with me just so we could sit outside and have real talk, the same ones who constantly comforted me when I cried.

The J brought me a sense of security, I don’t know if it was the idea that we were stuck with each other for the next 4 years, but nonetheless it brought me so close to people I never thought I would be friends with. Somehow there was always a feeling of connection with everyone. All those days we spent bonding over The Radical Write, article shares and running to the back room to print out whatever was due that day. It was forty-five minutes of rushing to finish all the homework that was due that day all while trying to keep each other updated on our lives, that became my everyday reality.

Even though the temptation of skipping the first period of my senior year was always there, there was no way I could miss journalism. I remember texting my friends saying, we can talk tomorrow in J, or make sure you come to class tomorrow I need to rant. Which is why I will never ever take a class like the J for granted ever again. My favorite saying is things happen for a reason, and now I know the reason why my parents told me to take journalism. It was the best thing that happened to me in high school, and I could not ask for a better group of classmates to become friends with.

So now, it’s safe to say now I did not hate high school. And from the bottom of my heart, I am going to miss WCHS and I am eternally grateful for all it has provided me.