Time is relative.

Those dull moments in your least favorite class drag on like a snail across a lawn, while the fun times at Six Flags with your friends flies by faster than Medusa on steroids.

The same goes for school.

It’s hard to believe that 4 years ago I was just starting this journey called high school. It seems like yesterday, yet so far away.

I can still remember the frantic panic after 7th period to get my books out of my locker and to change in order not to be late to practice. I can still hear the jazz sneaking out of the band room’s door as I was being dropped off for school. I can still smell the sweet scent of summer grass wafting over the school as I sallied myself out of the towering seniors’ paths.

It’s hard to believe it’s over.

I always thought that I would be horrifyingly nostalgic when it came to the end, but surprisingly I’m not; however, that’s probably because I spread it out over the last 2 years as Adam Hathaway can attest.

It’s a question of moving on.

Yes, the past is great. But if we continuously try to relive the past, then we will all end up shot in our swimming pools by the husband of the mistress of the husband of our mistresses, or forever yearning for a green light we can’t reach.

There’s a reason season finales and episodes of shows which look back over the years are so popular. People love to reminisce about the fun times. I do too. They’re great, but if we spend all our time reliving the past then the past for our future selves to reminisce is only us reminiscing about us reminiscing.

I will move on. I will move on to new places and meet new faces. I will traverse the earth in places where I don’t know every crack in the sidewalk, where I don’t know every stoplight’s patterns, where I don’t know every back road or trail within 20 miles, and where I will actually have to learn street names instead of “the street with a bunch of eucalyptus trees at the corner.”

I will have to relearn where I can get delicious pastries, where I can buy all the sports equipment I want, and I’ll have to find new people who I can call up in the middle of the night and rant to about how frustrating life can be when you are holding yourself back.

But in this early morning hour in which I write this, I hope that somehow, at least in some tiny way I live on here; that I’m not completely forgotten, that I’m not tossed aside like some single-use disposable plastic blowing in the wind only to end up in the intestine of a confused sea turtle.

I’ve met many people on this journey. Some who I knew before, some who I had forgotten, and some who I never knew I would know. But every person I have met has contributed to who I am, and I hope that I have contributed back somehow.

It could just be a simple word of wisdom passed down through the ranks or just a way of doing something. It could be the order of plank drills: front, side, side, back. It could be the sticker board sadly displayed in the backroom in the journalism room.

But if I could choose, I hope people will simply remember who I am.

It doesn’t have to be my accomplishments, nor my grades, nor my house, nor my work, nor my writing, nor my possessions, nor my feats. Just who I am as a person.

Because when it all comes down to it, we all want to be remembered. We want to live on through the generations. We want a small part of us to be carried by those we have given our care to. We want our efforts to be returned by the simple gift of our apprentice looking at the kid he took under his wing and saying, “Let me tell you a story about the man who taught me everything I know…”