Reprinted without permission from Erica Sanchez’s class blog soulhoney.edublogs.org

Dear high school,

Today is the last “normal” school day I will ever experience in high school.

As I walked through the hallways I could not help but feel both excitement and nostalgia. On my way to the bathroom, I had the hallway to myself, this led to many different thoughts. I wanted to run into room 507 where I had honors freshman English and go back to reading The Hobbit. I wanted to go into the PAB like I had done so many times in the past to release my stress. Four years of wearing the same uniform, attending school-wide masses, slamming lockers, and knowing 85 percent of the faculty will soon be past me.

Yes, I am sure that there is a greater life beyond me that I am not aware of and maybe high school will be a far distant memory, but that is not what is important now. These four years shaped me into the young woman I am today. Seventeen years naive and I am ready to go out and conquer college. High school is filled with many awkward and uncomfortable moments but these turn out to be some of the best lessons learned. There have been more times I have failed here than I have succeeded but my teachers have taught me that it is not about wins or losses, it is what we learn from the failures and what we can do to not make the same mistakes.

High school may seem like a prison sentence to most, it felt like that to me for most of the months but, I don’t think one truly understands the meaning of high school until the absolute end. The teachers that seemed terrible turn out to be really incredible people. There are many lessons taught outside of the curriculum. You may not learn how to become fluent in Spanish but you will learn how to be a better person. You may still not know how to use your calculator, but you will learn that some teachers are here because this is their passion.

In contrast, high school is a sweet sentence of four years. It is not more nor less. You have four years to learn and to grow. Society gives us these four to figure out who we are as individuals. These years are crucial to adulthood because this is where some of our toughest battles are fought. In these four years, I have laughed, cried, yelled, danced, sang, swam and loved. I don’t find myself regretting any of the decisions I made in my four years sentence because they all led me to this Monday afternoon.

Today I learned that I am ready to walk away from high school. As much as I will miss it, I am ready to leave my past because they can no longer teach me anything. It is now all about what I want for my future, I control the steering wheel and I like where I am going. So without further ado, thank you high school for the weirdest and craziest memories.

Yours Truly,

soulhoney.

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