Surprise, surprise, I made it to the last days of my senior year. The end of the year is the time where I’m supposed to reflect on the happy feely memories from my four years spent in a box of a building, learning. This time is for reminiscing on the good, the bad, and the finals that still have to come next week, which I dread more than the hot outdoor graduation ceremony.
Yep, high school. Crowded hallways and bright colored hall pass slips. The brick walls of the old school building and the shorts and t-shirt students insist on wearing when it is 15 degrees. The way some of the surfaces are just always sticky. The beloved LMC and how some students only use it to walk through as a shortcut. The bright yellow outside permit slips you got to flaunt around to make everyone else jealous they weren’t leaving. And oh my god, how the music wing is never the right temperature.
I might be sounding bitter over a lot of these things, but there are things I will miss. Like the fun stretchy chairs we sadly lost my sophomore year in Spanish class. The staff, the teachers, the people in my grade. The same people I’ve been to school with since kindergarten, leaving like I am. All of us moving on with a lot of uncertainty and a diploma from Stoughton High School.
This is uncertainty that I, too, share. All four years I’ve been uncertain. Uncertain about choosing to audition for concert choir or learning how to run the light board for theatre. But even

with those uncertainties, I surprised myself. I grew my hair out and I went out for things I told myself I couldn’t, The Norse Star included.
That being said, there were disappointments too. I went through a lot of failures, doubt, and lack of motivation. Those negatives leaked into my mental health, dragging me through school and leaving behind friends and hobbies I used to love.
I failed assignments, tests, and classes. I was surrounded by shame in my failure and convinced myself that things could never turn around. But really, I failed myself. I forgot how to support myself, and it hurt me more than any F on a paper could. When things got so bad that my parents decided to get me help, things were very uncert

ain. I had to open myself up and let things out to start healing.

Even today, I’m not 100%. There are still chemicals I lack in my body that make things harder for me, but I’ve again surprised myself by making it this far. In my last days of senior year, I’m writing my senior column for a paper I’ve wanted to be a part of since middle school.
Moving forward, I’m going to be attending UW-Whitewater for English and moving on. Hopefully continuing to surprise myself through it all.

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