When graduating from high school, seniors often diverge into two different views on their four-year experiences.  Some look back with nostalgia on the best years of their lives, while others leap and rejoice in feeling of the escape.  

For those who relish their days at the Academy, I have one encouragement: say good-bye well.  Tell your friends the impact they have on your life.  Tell your teachers the value of their guidance inside and outside the classroom.  Tell your coaches the magnitude of their lessons through sport.  Tell your parents thanks.  Tell the people you see in the hallway week-in and week-out cleaning up after you that you appreciate them one last time.  Do not allow yourself to become so caught up in the celebration that you forget to actually recognize the ending of a chapter in your life.  

Remember that high school is over, and trying to hold onto the past is pointless.  By the end of the summer, it is likely that you may be in contact with only five friends from Westminster.  This is okay, it is natural to let go in order to move on.  You have not failed in your friendships, but rather you are preparing to make new friends in college.  

This does not mean that one friend is lesser than the other.  One friend resides in the good times of high school, while your new friends are enveloped in a different life stage, college.  It is like the Girl Scouts song says, “Make new friends, but keep the old.  One is silver and the other gold.”  You will gain and lose friends in the evolution of your life, and high school to college is one of these transitions.  

For those who rejoice in the ending of high school because of the heartache that is intertwined with their experience, I have one encouragement as well: freedom is yours, you can and will reinvent yourself in college; it’s a restart button.  Enjoy it!  Do not fear the future.  Rejoice in a new beginning and move on by forgetting the past.    

For those of you in this category, I understand the pains of high school, I have been there.  When I think about my four year I remember times of heartache over friends who rarely included me.  I think of academic struggle and minimal empathy for challenging teachers.  However, these categories are not black and white. 

My experience seems more like a shade of gray.  I think of some good in relationships I have made with educators who love me for who I am and encourage me in overwhelming times.  I think of disappointment that led to the strengthening of my character.  Irony encompasses my experience: I have wanted a friend group who loved me for me and included me, and I have made those friends at the end of my senior year.  I have found people who I truly care about and who care about me in the fleeting last months of high school, and it hurts me to know that we may not remain this close throughout college.  

A couple of months ago, I would have told you that I leap and rejoice in the feeling of escape, but now with the gaining of true friends I feel like a mixed senior.  Yes, I have been hurt by people at Westminster, which does skew my opinion about the institution as a whole, but I have also made meaningful and lasting friendships with teachers and students toward the end of my time here. 

The reality remains, high school is over and what you choose to do after this point is up to you.  You can live in the past and dream about the glory days, you can sever all ties to the Academy, or you can combine the two, keeping the good and relinquishing the unpleasant.  I will choose to do the latter.