It’s easy to look back on high school and remember it with the filter of nostalgia—a time of firsts, excitement, and growth. After being handed my diploma, I, like many others, left a barrage of pointless classes (actually though what is calculus?), quizzes, fake friends, ex-boyfriends, judgments, and humiliations and haven’t looked back since. 

The day of graduation, walking out those doors with a future that no longer carried the weight of the past, and all the possibilities in the world, it was easy to decide I would never have to again. High school had taken a toll that I couldn’t quite describe, and wasn’t sure I wanted too. After reflection though, it surprised me that what I once thought were everlasting scars no longer existed, and it surprised me even more to discover I had begun to be thankful for those experiences, sometimes even laugh at them. I was happy I could look back on the memories and no matter how long ago they were I could still laugh with fondness.

For most, high school was frustrating and awkward which makes it easy to forget just how unique and rare it was. The halls of high school bear witness to such raw and genuine emotion that you can’t find anywhere else and forever stop existing once you leave. Never again in our lives can we walk down a hallway filled with people who have known you since your braces, black eyeliner, flared jeans with Uggs days and still love you or experience the innocence of an awkward first kiss or the crushing blow of a first break up. Never again will your best friend be a five-minute drive down the road 12 months of the year, will the girl you hate eat lunch across the room, or will parties be with the same group of people every weekend. There’s a magic to that all its own.

As I began a mental tour of my high school I realize that nothing in my life will ever be similar to the four years that took place there. High school is its own world, and we, the students, exist in its orbit. When you’re here, no life exists outside the lockers, hallways, sports, and people. Small things seem like the end of the world—who did (or didn’t) say hi to you in the hallway, who talked about who, who just broke up, who got cheated on, who hooked up with whom at the party. How many times we are pieces in someone else’s story, our personal details coming out of stranger’s mouths? These halls can be relentless and cruel; it’s hard to leave without any scars. Ask me sophomore year what it felt like when all my friends were mad at me and I would tell you my life was ending. So goes the magic of high school, in one day your life could be nearly over during first period and during fourth everything’s okay again. There was an innocence that existed, we were untouched by the “real world” and through the good and the bad I can’t help but yearn to relive it sometimes.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, college is probably the best place in the world but there’s something to be said about a time period where after a bad break up I could lay in my best friends bed for four days without moving and just cry, moms (and dads) were a lot closer than a phone call, Friday nights were filled with football and friends, and the future was a distant road we weren't quite on yet.

So this is my ode to high school. You aren’t all bad. Yes, you can be terrible at times, you can be heartless and cruel and make me never want to get out of bed, but you gave some memories that will last a life time, some best friends, a lot of lessons and I couldn’t be more grateful.