There are parts of high school you will remember for the rest of your life, but there are also parts you’ll forget by August. Yes, High School has a significant impact on our lives but let’s be honest; Will most of the stuff here matter after we graduate? The drama, the lost friends, the embarrassing moments, or those few homework assignments you decided not to do in the last month of senior year? I think we’ve all grown a lot since we were thrown together at Westridge in 7th grade, but I also think most of us have outgrown the limits of high school. It’s our time to branch out and escape the different parts of high school for whatever it is we plan to do next.

I think it’s important to realize though that we made it through all of the stuff we complained about through school. The biology tests, vocab quizzes, spelling tests, english essays, math tests, gym classes, history tests, pop quizzes: Everything. That chemistry test you bombed it’s behind you. That time you were hit in the face with the soccer ball in gym, it’s behind you. All of these things we complained about we made it through. I’m not sure if we ever think about that once the test or class is over, but now it’s all over and done with and I think we deserve some congratulation for making it through all of these difficult classes, projects, tests and assignments before we completely forget them.

I’m also not saying we should forget the entirety of senior year, or high school for that matter, I’m saying let’s remember the good and forget the bad. Let’s remember the significant lasts of our senior year; The last football game, last homecoming, last pep assembly, last musical, last choir concert, whatever you participated in, we’ve experienced all of these things and now we’re headed towards the final step in our journey: graduation.

Graduation is the last time we will ALL be congregated together in one place. For some people, that won’t matter very much but we should remember all of us have been together for six years almost, some longer if you went to the same elementary school and it’s all coming to a close. Some of us will still live in town and some of us will go to the same college, but it’s the last time all of us will be together. You might not even be friends with everyone in our class but you recognize their names and faces in the hall, some might even be sitting next to you at graduation. You might even connect with those people a few years down the line because you have the same high school in common. Graduation is everyone’s celebration. Everyone who made it from the awkward middle school stage to the senior year glo’ up. Everyone who walks across the stage, it’s their night just like it is yours.