When I started at Selma High, I had a feeling the next four years would feel like an eternity. 

Standing here now as a senior, well, this sentiment was obviously not the case.

It feels like just yesterday I was sitting in my first high school math class, or standing under a tree in the quad with my friends during lunch. Back then, most of me just wanted to be over and done with high school already. Being a teenager and having to worry about the strife the next few years would bring sounded exhausting. The other part, although I probably didn’t realize it, looked forward to all the fun high school promised.

High school meant growing up, and getting to have a bit more independence. I could enjoy hanging out with friends, going to events, participating in extracurriculars…all the fun stuff. And yes, I did enjoy these things. But as I grew, I kept finding myself always looking towards the next thing, whether that be what the next semester would hold, next year, and even after graduation. 

Sometimes, when you’re always looking ahead at what’s to come, you don’t realize you’re right in the middle of what you used to look forward to. I know throughout my high school years, it was easy to say, “ugh, can’t wait ‘til I’m out of here!” without realizing that my senior year, I’d be looking back and cherishing all the memories I had made. 

The way I see it, high school boasts some of the best memories simply because it’s a time where one can be surrounded by their friends so often. Only looking at lunchtimes, that’s about 40 minutes a day for 180 days (and that’s only one year)! I’ve known many of the people in my friend group for about six  years now, with some for even longer, and for a while I was spending more time with them at school than I was spending at home. Regardless, having time to be around my friends is something I really love, and it has resulted in some of the best memories. 

Whether it be simply hanging out, or having meaningful discussion with peers, there’s really no other time like high school to make such great connections every day, and no other time where those connections get to be so unabashedly fun. Soon, we’re all going to be going off to college, and I really hope through the thick and thin, we’ve all been able to find some part of high school to look back on and smile at. 

So to anyone still going through high school, let this be a life lesson to you: cherish every moment, because life really does come at you fast.