I thought my last piece for Trapeze would begin with certainty. Instead, I’ve been deleting the same characters for days, circling back to a blank page.

I’ve had experience with extended goodbyes in different aspects of my life. I’ve said goodbye to a language, to countries, to food, and to people, knowing that our next encounter would be at a date I could not foresee. 

But that was all it was, a separation for an extended period of time; they were things you could return to. The country is still there. The people are still there. You learn to hold things loosely, and distance is something you learn to manage rather than something you mourn.

However, I have almost no experience in confronting age. Now that we are graduating, we are forced to accept that this is a permanent separation. 

Going to school has been a constant. It stayed with me beyond borders, people and customs. It masked the passage of time because, as the years passed, the structure remained similar, and I think that is part of why I haven’t felt my birthday for the last three years. 

I used to feel every single age that I turned, as if each new year marked a significant change. It was a shift from 7 to 8 or from 13 to 14, and I felt that it fundamentally transformed my life as I matured a little more each year. 

This similarity in the routine of high school allowed me to live ignorantly for a few years. I fell into the trap of the big school, like OPRF. I distracted myself with schoolwork, my tennis team, writing and editing for Trapeze, and meeting new people at every corner. I got lost in the crowd of faces I didn’t recognize in the hallways, and now I’m closer to 19 than to 18, which is an unsettled issue in my head, as I still don’t feel like I turned 17. 

Graduating is making me finally confront time. We’re reaching the age where time is starting to cause irreversible damage and take things away that even proximity cannot fix. Even if we come back to this place, time will take away the qualities of what it used to be. We are saying goodbye to an OPRF that will be lost in the passage of time and will keep changing for the future classes that succeed us. 

We devise ways to keep ourselves grounded in the midst of time’s changes. For me, that manifested itself through writing. Each piece I wrote for Trapeze became a marker for that period, creating a collective archive of my high school experiences. 

I know that in the future, they will serve as a reminder of the life I created for myself in this community. And as OPRF keeps changing, there are pieces of our class that will remain with it, regardless of which direction the school goes, much like with us. 

Senior year was also my favorite year, which contributes to why this change feels difficult. High school makes sure that you really enjoy your final year and that you feel like you’ve built a life around this place, so that you miss it. 

–Clara Lau, Former Editor-in-Chief

The end of the year always brings reflection for the seniors, and I am no exception. For a lot of us there have been little goodbyes throughout the year: senior nights, final performances, final games, last late start and a million others.  

I have thought about how to say this specific goodbye for a long time. I’ve stared at a blinking cursor and deleted paragraphs. I think it’s because this is a different type of goodbye.  

Right now though we’re approaching the bigger goodbyes, the last day of school with our friends, graduation and at the end of summer saying goodbye as our friends are scattered across the country. 

As humans we are naturally drawn to connection and hesitant of uncertainty. I think this is why the idea of college feels daunting. For many of us coming to high school was a continuation of the same people, plus new people. But with college it’s all new people. Even if you know people going to the same school as you, there’s no guarantee you’ll see them. 

So as I reflect on my four years at this school I can say unequivocally that the best memories of high school are tied to the people in them. Some of the memories I will treasure most happened talking with a friend as we walked to class. 

There is a quote credited to Winnie the Pooh that always makes the rounds on social media during graduation season, and as cheesy as it is I think it encapsulates the feeling I’m talking about. 

“How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

I will forever be grateful for the extraordinary, talented, wonderful people who there are no words to fully describe how special they are, who I have had the privilege of spending high school with. I feel a little bit silly being sentimental, but I’d rather be sentimental than regret not being sentimental. 

I think the greatest piece of advice I can give to those of you who are not seniors is to make time for your friends. Hopefully you will all see your friends after graduation, but there is no guarantee, so make time. 

Also remember to do the activities, hobbies, clubs, etc. that bring you joy, because that is where you will be the happiest and it is where you will find people who make you laugh until you can’t breathe. 

If you want to try something new or try something again, do it. I would not have the friends I do if one of my friends hadn’t convinced me to give theater another try. 

So, yeah. Seniors, we’re done tomorrow. The rest of you have four more days. Make this summer count. As anxiety-inducing as it is to be the person who reaches out first, the regret from not reaching out will be worse. 

This goodbye is one that I and so many of us have been looking forward to, and despite how daunting it is to say goodbye, I am still looking forward to graduation. 

I am excited for what college has in store for me, I’m excited to meet new people, and I’m excited to watch my friends soar. 

This goodbye is changing a lot. We are saying goodbye to friends, familiar neighborhoods, study methods that won’t work in college, but it doesn’t change how we feel about our people. 

No matter where we are in the world, we will have the memories we’ve made. Maybe we’ll make more memories together, maybe we won’t. But I will remember the ones I’ve made over the years, I will write them down and look back on the photos. 

I’m not sure how to end this so I’m just going to say this goodbye now. Goodbye to the certainty I got in high school and hello to a summer I’m going to make the most of. I hope you do too. 

–Madeline Walski, Former Editor-in-Chief