When the AHS Class of 2019 came to my middle school for their Grad Run and talked about how I would be graduating before I knew it, I completely underestimated how much truth those words held. Here I am, a mere two weeks from graduating from high school, though I still may be mistaken for a freshman or a sophomore by people who don’t know me. In all honesty,when I look back at these four years, I don’t know how it happened, and I don’t know how to feel. More often than I’d like, I question whether I wasted high school, if I could’ve worked harder, if I lost sight of my goals or of who I was, or if I would define these four years as successful.

As a middle school student, I always viewed high schoolers, especially seniors, as the coolest people to ever exist. I always envisioned myself as one of these nonchalant high school students one day, who could drive and stay out late and partake in other stereotypical teenage activities. After finally experiencing high school, I can say that I have very well disappointed my middle school self. For starters, I am 17-years-old with no driver’s license, an expired permit, and my parents always wait up for me while I am out, so I never stay out too late unless I know my parents will sleep before I get home (a rare occurrence). I didn’t get the high school experience that is romanticized by movies or TV shows. I got my own experience, one that was better yet worse than those depicted by the romanticized high school movies I grew up watching on Disney Channel. It made me hate life but also appreciate and feel gratitude towards it, but it was filled with the most amazing people.

As I leave high school, the thing I am most scared and sad to leave are the people and relationships I have formed, especially this year with the people in Orchesis. I came into Orchesis as the only first-year senior, and I was petrified. Not only was I scared that my dancing would not live up to their expectations, I feared being left out and spending the year all by myself. Now, at the end of my year with Orchesis, I can say that fear was more than irrational. Before Orchesis, I was excited to graduate from high school and leave AHS behind. After spending the majority of time during this past year with the people in Orchesis, leaving Orchesis and the people in the company makes me actually sad to graduate and gives me something to miss when I am gone.

Words cannot express how immensely grateful I am for what Orchesis has done for me. Experiencing growth as not only a dancer but a person, the program helped me learn how to work through my exhaustion when I do my homework after rehearsals and be more sure of myself as a person and a dancer. I have made so many memories, whether it be backstage during show runs or during the show itself or at rehearsals or bondings in the studio, and I will be forever grateful that I got to spend my senior year with the most amazing 29 other people that share the same passion for dance that I do. The friendships I have made in Orchesis, especially with the people in grades below me, which have truly been the highlight of my senior year. Although this may be embarrassing to admit, I have spent the last 6 nights in a row crying because of how lost and empty I feel just thinking about not having Orchesis or the people in the company in my life. I would do anything to have another year, another show season, or another rehearsal with Orchesis.

All in all, my senior year has been one that taught me more than I thought it would. I am not the same person that I was when I entered the school year and I can confidently say that I am proud of the person I am now, regardless of the doubts that may arise. I am so grateful for the people that have shaped me into the person I am today and although I may be leaving them behind, I carry a piece of each and every one of them as I move forward and carve my adult self. Change is inevitable and scary but life would be so painfully and excruciatingly boring if we lived a life that did not change. I move into the future with fear but excitement and I hope that one day I live up to my expectations.