Lately, the most mundane things make me sentimental. I sit in class every day and catch myself staring at the ivory floor tiles in boredom, just like I’ve done for the past four years. Except now, the tiles mean something. After graduation, I’ll never see those tiles again. Habits will come to an abrupt end—like walking into the Media Center every morning and laughing with my friends before the first-period bell. Do I really care about the floor tiles? No, but I’m great at assigning meaning to insignificant objects. Those tiles are suddenly everything I’ll miss about OLCHS and every mixed feeling I have about graduating.
When I was a freshman, graduation felt universes away. I was fourteen, naive, and solely focused on passing Algebra. I joined random clubs like Journalism and Spartanite because my teachers in middle school always said I was good at writing, and to me it was fun. I had no idea these clubs, and writing in general, would be my absolute favorite part of high school.
Sophomore year was probably my favorite. School was in-person again, and I got the true high school experience for the first time. College wasn’t looming over my head yet, so there was little to worry about besides school work. I had the kind of teenage fun I’d seen in coming-of-age movies all my life. I wish someone would’ve told me to appreciate it more, because the next two years would fly right by.
Can we skip over junior year entirely? Everyone says it’s the worst year of high school, and somehow I thought they were all overexaggerating. If anything, they were sugarcoating it. Obviously the junior year experience isn’t applicable to everyone, but that whole year flipped my world upside down about seven different times and left me reeling.
Sophomore year was sweet, junior year was bitter, and senior year has been a conflicting mix of both. I’m not someone who particularly loves school, and that’s an understatement. At times, I’ve begged for graduation to come as soon as possible. Now that it’s so close, I wish I could pause time. I’m already mourning, and it’s not even over yet.
OLCHS gave me a lot over four years. I’ve met wonderful people: teachers and friends and the people in my classes I was never quite friends with but will miss seeing every day. It’s hard to let go of it all, even if I know college will be an equally formative experience with equally wonderful people.
I’ll miss the little things, like the quiet anticipation during tenth period on Friday afternoons and Luigi trotting down the hallway. I’ll miss writing for the Spartanite, because it’s helped me evolve my writing. It’s always been there when I wanted to write about something I cared about. I’ll miss the floor tiles too, because even tedium is sweet when you know it’ll be gone soon.
