High school was an emotional experience. I am an extremely emotional person, crying with the characters on TV when something sad happens, or when someone in my book is killed off or when a song really hits deep. It’s been really hard not to cry so far this year when I realize that, I won’t be here next year.
I won’t have my sister to walk home with up the hill from our bus stop, I won’t have my best friend complaining to me about her parents during lunch before we get food and watch videos together. I won’t get to put up the Christmas tree with my parents again for a while, or struggle through helping my brother through learning a foreign language.
I will miss so much. I will miss watching Marvel movies with my Dad in the theaters, geeking out with him when we get a reference or an easter egg. I will miss Mac too, though. I’ll miss the rush of walking past an AP with a tank top on, hoping I’m not dress-coded because it’s just so hot here. I will miss the Publications’ room and all of the jokes and laughter that came with it.
But that’s not to say I’ll miss everything. I’ll still get to see my sister’s graduation in a few years, I’ll still get to spend the winter holidays baking obscene amounts of cookies with my mother while my brother tries to help and my sister hides out upstairs. I’ll still get to visit with friends when I come back on breaks from college – a few states away.
Even if I miss out on a few things, I won’t be gone forever. I’ll just be up in Washington state, attending The University of Puget Sound, with dreams of all but living in the library and studying English and making friends, with students, professors, and cafe baristas as I stay up way later than I probably should, all too often.
I grew up there in Washington, having spent eight or nine years in a small city just barely north of the Columbian river, but I was Texas born, and so it was only fitting to come back and finish my school experience here at MacArthur.
I was so intimidated when I first came here, the campus being so large, but it’s a school I came to love. The lunches out on the patio and the ones in the senior dining hall, the two football games I ever attended and the one volleyball game. I had a lot of experience in socializing and coming out of my shy little shell, becoming a pretty loud and open person, much to the surprise of many, including myself.
I look for my own experience as I leave this campus, and head to another about 2,000 miles away, but though I’ll miss this sunset town, I won’t forget all the good times I had here.
(The song mentioned is Good Times by All Time Low)
