When I was a sophomore and had to stay up late writing an essay or studying for a Precalculus test, I remember my older sister would come into my room and say, “You got this Vicky! Trust me, this is as hard as it gets, just push through.” I always believed her, even though she was blatantly lying. Sophomore year wasn’t as hard as it gets, junior year was the worst … but I digress. In those moments, I wanted nothing more than for it to be over. I felt like I was holding my breath just waiting for high school to end. But when I reflect upon the past four years at LM, I realize now that those feelings of distress only enriched those unforgettable moments that I recall so fondly when I hear the words “high school.”
Our class, the class of 2022, is the last set of students at LM able to compare the academic atmosphere in all stages of the pandemic. Finishing our freshman year normally, after enduring an ever-changing virtual to hybrid to in-person schedule, and finally having our last few months during our senior year return to “normal,” we have demonstrated our resilience. We’ve attended classes not knowing if it’s the last time we’ll see our fellow students and teachers in person for months. After groggily waking up at 7:29 to log into my first set APUSH Zoom class, I’ve come to appreciate the half hour before I drove to school, when I got dressed and sat at the kitchen table eating Froot Loops. I appreciate the third floor laps I took with my classmates between double sets for science classes. I appreciate the brief exchanges with friends as I passed them in the hallway. I appreciate the shared feelings of nervousness, cramming our notes and reviewing problem sets before a big physics test. I appreciate all the times I fell both down and up the atrium stairs.
Although most of it was difficult, and some of it embarrassing, the sum of each and every experience over the past four years is what embodies high school. Not a single second, no matter how stressful or disheartening, can go unrecognized as we reflect and appreciate all we’ve been through. We wouldn’t have been able to cherish those class parties and movies before spring break if we hadn’t spent hours reviewing our notes in preparation for the exams we had the week prior. There truly is nothing like having over a thousand teenagers together for seven hours a day, five days a week, in one school building—or two I guess, if you count the Chemistry building. We may never come across the close knit community of LM in the same way we feel it now—it’s rare to be able to see someone in the hallway and remember when you scraped together a social studies presentation about Sir George Calvert together in seventh grade. Each day that we pressed snooze before double-checking the letter day on PowerSchool presented its own challenges, but now we’ve earned a moment to distinguish between the feelings of suffering and the feelings of satisfaction.
