The first time that I truly processed the fact that I would be attending LM was about 8 years ago. Picture young Julia, a Merion Elementary schooler with a bright pink iPod touch, binge watching YouTube clickbait. I lived for the scandals, pouring through Watch Mojo-style top ten videos about whatever caught my eye. One night, in my childhood quest for dopamine, I came across a video claiming to document the “top 5 times schools went too far.” At the very top of the list stood a story of computers and security that my friends and I now refer to as Webcam-Gate. It was shocking to see such a tale of my own future school, and the whole place seemed terrifying. Needless to say, it wasn’t the best first impression. Still, it was nothing if not memorable—ever since, LM has stuck in my mind as something newsworthy.
It’s easy to get caught up in the headlines and drama, to lose yourself in the excitement of big news. The college commitments, the advisory fights, the grade-wide scandals, all of that takes up so much space in our minds. Right now, those moments are memorable, because the excitement is fresh. The gossip we tell our friends at lunch seems all-encompassing at times, like it’ll matter forever.
Graduation itself is a huge, newsworthy event. We spent years longing for its arrival. Our parents announce it on Facebook, and we post about it on Instagram (this isn’t hate, I’ll likely do the same). It’s a huge announcement to say we’ve graduated, a headline of our own: we did it! But the point of all of these proclamations is in the subtext, not in the receiving of a diploma or walking across a stage. What is this day if not a celebration of all of the little moments that built up to it? Every wave to a friend in the hallway, every sports practice, every homework assignment done was a little piece found in the puzzle of making our way through high school. Each day, we got up too early in the morning and trudged our way to class. We made it through the hard, and we took advantage of the easy. Every decision, as substantial as the ones we made for our futures or as small as what gym class to take, added up to our experience of high school. At graduation, we celebrate the accumulation of those moments, not just the big day itself. We should be proud of ourselves, not for the news of crossing the stage, but for each step we took to get there.
I am proud to have been a part of sharing our big events for the past four years. The Merionite turned into a home base for me at school. We had a lot of fun writing the most exciting stories we could, trying to make headlines that would draw people in. But it wasn’t the news or the drama we published that made this club mean so much to me over the years. Rather, I became attached to the satisfaction of laying out a page, the long philosophical debates to distract us at Late Night, the exhausted drives home. I loved the moments on staff where I felt surrounded by friends. As stressful as the deadlines could be, there was always an easy contentment to those long inDesign hours for me.
Today, I’m sure I’ll remember putting on my robes and receiving my diploma. But I hope more than anything to remember the little moments that allowed me to get there, and I hope you, my classmates, can too.
Most of life is small moments. If you only care for the headlines, you’ll only remember a glimpse. You have to read the whole article. You have to hold those details near.
