Hello, I hope you’ve all been well!
I confess that the reason I wrote this today is because I got hit by a truck of nostalgia being back home and seeing all of your posts on Facebook. Amazingly, all it took was looking at an old photograph of all of us together on the front steps, some of us in zombie garb, to make me think of all the good and the bad things I went through there with all of you.
Unfortunately, I do remember a lot of bad things, like staying up way too late working on big projects, annotating assigned readings to the point of un-recognizability, that terrifying portrait of our school founder in our conference room, and our big senior exams. I even lived out some things while I was there that some of you didn’t know about, such as my first crush and the beginnings of my anxiety.
Yes, I remember bad things when I look at this picture, but I recall all the good times we shared together, as well. I remembered the senior skit we created for all the teachers and students to watch. I thought of our mock Olympic games and our wonderful physics teacher who dressed as Darth Vader at the opening ceremony and danced awkwardly at the after-party as part of a charity auction. I think of the pig dissections, the physics projects we made together, and the endless amounts of poetry you guys let me recite in class. Despite being a bit of a brooding artist, I still consider the times I got to share my work with you to be among my proudest and most fun moments in high school.
We also went to a lot of cool places together! I think about the trip I took with some of you to Rennes, France, our trip to the woods wherein we climbed a bunch of trees for our health class, and our visit that beautiful nature center where we did our big science project (I recently had a good laugh about that, by the way, with a fellow botany student, telling her about how we attempted to measure plant productivity by putting saplings in sealed bags overnight with dirt and measuring the CO2 levels in the bags the day afterwards…what a disaster). I still swoon thinking about the production of "Othello" and we saw in Stratford and chuckle remembering that bad "Crucible" stage play we saw here in Michigan. Needless to say, guys, your witty remarks, and smart insights always made things interesting no matter where we went.
Seeing us all together on those concrete steps, walking out for one of the last times, reminds me how excited I felt to go back to school so that I could have conversations with all of you and learn cool stuff from all of our amazing teachers. I also recall the small things we had, like our Quidditch team and that dude with a rubber pigeon head that would hide in the math classroom until the teacher found him. I always want you—my genuine friends—to know that I consider you all to be my family. That is because the bonds you form in a tough high school last a lifetime. Even if—when we meet again—we don’t speak to each other, I want you to know that I do remember you and all the good times we shared as a class. The joy I feel when it happens is similar to looking through an old yearbook and knowing the name of a classmate without seeing their class picture first. Except, I find myself lucky enough to recognize everybody! Again, I hope you are all doing well and/or famous by now. I hope to see you soon!
