I spent much of my high school career counting down the days until it was over. It fit the cynical, against-the-grain, anti-GP gimmick that I upheld for a long time. Even until recently I was plotting my escape to a far-away college where I could pop “the bubble” and leave these memories far behind. Yet, as graduation draws ever closer, I find myself cherishing my final days.

This coveted final stretch of senior year has me reflecting on my time at South in various ways, from senior biographies and columns to “Class of 2027” Instagram introductions. Contrary to anything I would have ever expected, I’m realizing that I enjoyed high school. As luck would have it, I’m only discovering this now as the unforgiving march of time prepares to take it away from me.

As I write this, it’s less than four months away from the beginning of college. I am 111 days from the indefinite end of midnight Lakeshore drives, “feast Fridays”, movie nights, tech-week Coney trips and Sunday evening jazz. Above all, I will likely never again live in this same town with most of my favorite people.

That fact is terrifying. Curl-up-in-a-ball terrifying. Unfortunately for me, there’s no way to press pause, and I’m not about to spend the rest of my time at South dreading the day it’s all over. Instead, I’m finding joy in creating memories- romanticizing the mundane if I have to- and making the most of these last few days.

Time stops for no one. I have only a few regrets through these past four years, and one is not realizing that sooner.
If you should take away one nugget of wisdom from this geezer, it should be to spend less time anticipating the future. It will become the present soon enough, whether you like it or not. One moment you’re ogling over pink marble hallways for the first time, and the next you’re an Ohio-bound eighteen-year-old hastily writing the culmination of their teenage wisdom.

To quote Mr. Hamka, quoting Kung Fu Panda, “Today is a gift, that’s why it is called the present.”

In other words, live in the moment, as they say. I’m not sure who this omniscient “they” are, anyways, but I do know that I’m beyond lucky to have had such a wonderful time here, and I wish so badly that I had realized that sooner.