As I sit here trying to write my senior reflection, I decided that instead of me rambling on about memories from the past four years, I’m going to share an entry from one of my journals that I looked at earlier this week.

Dear Diary,
“I’m wondering why I thought saying goodbye to high school would be easy. It has, in fact, proven to be anything but easy. The past few weeks have been a weird in-between phase of being ready to say goodbye, and being afraid and not ready to move on. The past four years have been filled with so many different emotions that my brain often feels like a scribble.

I keep thinking about how fast four years went by and how, at the same time, every single day seems to drag on for an eternity. Somehow, I feel like I should be a freshman sitting at the back of the classroom, coming off of an entire year of online school and having no idea what high school’s going to be like. And then reality hits. I’m a senior, I’ll be graduating soon and before I know it, I’ll be going to school in Michigan.

I feel like there are three main lessons that I’ve learned throughout high school. Don’t be so hard on yourself, don’t bite off more than you can chew, and don’t forget to have fun in every situation. As a student, I always felt like I was living in a pressure cooker, and oftentimes I feel like I forgot to try to have fun and enjoy the daily madness.

I think one of the things that I’m going to miss most about high school is writing for Common Sense. No matter what kind of day I was having, the newspaper room always just felt like a warm hug on a cold day. I started newspaper as a freshman in journalism, and this year was a managing editor, which was truly one of the best things I did in high school. I got to learn so much about myself as a writer, engage with the community and talk to so many students and staff members around the school. If someone were to ask me what the best thing I did in high school was, I would without a doubt say joining the newspaper.

The other day in class, Mrs. Starr was talking about students always coming back to visit teachers once they’ve graduated, and she said something that has really stuck with me. She was talking about how sometimes we need to just let things go instead of coming back and tainting our good memories.

The more I think about it, the more I want to leave the memories I have exactly as they are. Whether they were good or bad, they were all a part of my high school career. I want to say a huge thank you to all the staff members who have helped me over the past four years, all my friends who made classes go by fast and the year go by even faster. Finally, to Common Sense for giving me a place to truly grow and learn in so many ways, and giving me some of the best memories of high school that I will forever leave untainted.