By Russell Omo

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It’s the last issue of the year, the last editorial of the year and, above all things, the last meandering days for us students before we leave school for the summer. For me and for many others in my position, being a senior means the end of our high school career, an end to four long years of education, four long years of sleepless nights, four long years of unprecedented gray hairs and, how could I ever forget, the quintessential teenage angst that appears whenever we don’t want it. The day that the caps and gowns came in, I looked at my little tightly wrapped package and wondered, like all deep writers wonder, “Was it all worth it in the end?” For days I wondered and I could only remember and for some reason, of all times, I remembered so vividly.

It’s the ability to remember that is simply so powerful, so profound, that I, in that minute passage of time, was taken on a journey of my own past, a story where I witnessed my own coming of age. It was happy and joyful. I relived all those emotions that I had felt once before, even those feelings that I wish to forget and those moments that I wish never happened.

I remembered when I realized who my true friends were and that bittersweet feeling of seeing someone you thought had forgotten you all this time. I remembered the splendor of excelling through school and then, realizing my limitations and learning what it means to be on the brink of failure. I remembered junior prom and then regretted that I did.

I remembered every first day of the school year and each day before summer, how the loud screams would roar and how the cars would burn right out of the parking lot. I remember having dreams of making it big and enjoying life to the fullest and then, as time passed, found that not everything can be achievable. It was the inconvenient truth that with any sort of happiness, there is always an equal amount of suffering.         But the strange thing was, above all the negativity, beyond my most remarkable moments of splendor and serendipity, I felt euphoric. It was the myriad emotions of my high school days that culminated into this state of sentimentality and I was stuck in a stupor, where I could only breathe and stare into the immense unknown. I realized how far I came and how far I have to go. It is by remembering that I come to treasure the happenings in my life, regardless of how I feel. I am who I am because of them.

Now, I have to admit that I lied in the beginning of this piece. It was not when I got my cap and gown that I chose to remember. But I have always been remembering my life, well, parts of it, for a while now. It has become a ritual that I cannot help but do. And this, the end of this year for the underclassmen, the end of high school for me, the end. And now that it is indeed the finale of this saga, it is the prime time to remember because everything that has happened is coming together into one little nostalgic package.

So the question still remains, “Was it all worth it in the end?” There is a part of me and a part of all other seniors, that is all too prepared to leave high school and just wants it to end. That isn’t to say that it shouldn’t, but it most definitely must not be forgotten. Four long years. That is something that would be hard to let go of.

For me, I have had my fair share of remembering, and I believe that every senior, rather, everyone should do so every now and again. Because things are never truly appreciated until they are gone, and, in one’s old age, it would just be nice to remember what it was like to take that first step into four long years of high school and know that it was all worth it in the end.