Wow. Four years already. It's weird how each day itself felt so long, yet highschool just flew by. It feels like just yesterday I was staring confused at a map of the building, with absolutely no idea where anything was. Yet somehow I made it, and now I'm sitting at my desk, four days since my last day of highschool.
It's funny, how for the last four years all I wanted was to be done. Well, to be honest, it was mainly looking forward to the mythical "second semester" of senior year, a supposedly magical time where school no longer matters because you'll already have been accepted to a college. Well, that was a load of bullshit. I had more things to do in the second semester of my senior year than I ever had in all of highschool. Regardless, now that it's all over, leaving isn't as sweet as I thought it would be.
I'm finding that it's hard to say goodbye to the place I've spent so much of my time these past few years. Sure, there were some shitty moments. Freshman year Earth Science was basically another way of saying Hell. (I mean, come on, who calls counting sand grains under a microscope an "activity") Moving up a level in Math and Spanish during sophomore year tanked my grades in both those classes, so that wasn't too fun either. Junior year was ok, but it wasn't enough to prepare me for the gut punch that is the entire college application process. But despite all that, now that I have the benefit of retrospect, it wasn't that bad overall. Monthly movie nights in the lecture hall, ice cream pies, concerts, bake sales, parties, hanging out with friends, classes that I actually looked forward to having, Senior Dress Up Day, Mr. LS, Prom. All things considered, I had a blast.
But I can't describe all the amazing experiences I had in one blog post, nor do they belong in one whose purpose is to say farewell. So I guess I'll leave it at this. I'm thankful for LS, and for all the wonderful teachers and students that made it such a great place. Despite all the jokes about finally being "free", it truly feels a lot less like escaping, and more like saying farewell to an old friend. A farewell a part of me doesn't really want to say.
There is no comfort in the word "farewell," even if you say it in French. "Farewell" is a word that, in any language, is full of sorrow.
- Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux