I finished my first year of college last week, and tonight I’m parked watching the sunset in the East parking lot.

As I watch the sun set over you, tears fill my eyes.

You bring so many emotions, and once again I feel the need to say thank you. Thank you for all of the good, and thank you for the bad. Thank you for molding me, for letting me grow. Thank you for the opportunity to see my football team make a state run, and thank you for that last basketball game I played wearing your jersey. Thank you for letting me wear number 41 on the court and number 11 (& 6) on the field. Thank you for the memories, thank you for the moments. Thank you for a staff that cared, teachers that nurtured, and a principal that became like family.

At graduation a year ago, I delivered a speech. I presented the 2017 class gift.

It was a monument rendering the alma mater. I've read the alma mater hundreds of times during practice, as it hung on the wall of the old gym, and probably recited it a hundred more memorizing it for my speech. I even got to help design the monument, but until this moment I never truly understood the weight of the words i read.

I was always proud to be your student.

I bragged about our football team, how the swim team won county year after year, and that our baseball team was State Champion. I knew our test scores were higher than other schools in our county, and that when people heard your name, they knew you were a force to be reckoned with. Until I went out into the world and come back in, I never realized how truly proud I was to be a student at a school as wonderful as you. You prepared me so well, not only for the rigor of my University, but for life.

I wish I could have the moments back, so small but so sweet.

The ones that I didn’t know I would miss. I wish I could cheer for you one more time under the lights on Friday night, or hug my friends once more in your parking lot. I wish I could feel the excitement of graduation again, how my chest burst with pride when I got to turn that tassel. I wish I could walk your halls just once more, going from second period to third.

Thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you- for preparing me, for teaching me, for readying me, for each of these sweet moments, and for a million more I didn’t know I would miss.