This is the last alter-ego day I will observe until I finally get to participate. Watching these seniors, the ones who have been beside me for three years, leave is thrilling and depressing. What will we juniors do next year without senior crushes or Spatio anxiety? Sure the traditions are fun, senioritis becomes more than a myth, and you run the school, but if it’s this sad to watch senior friends leave, how will we feel when our class breaks up all across the country?

As a freshman, every senior guy was so tall and every senior girl was so gorgeous. Whether I saw them in the halls or spent hours with them in extracurriculars, the seniors were untouchable. I haven’t seen any of them since they graduated, but I remember some of them. Mostly, I just remember feeling short while passing them in the hall and stalking the futures account, despite not knowing anybody. Last year, some seniors became my best friends as they became these older, much more stressed, students. They drove me around. They talked about paying for college and getting jobs. Mostly, they complained about APUSH and physics tests and still having to deal with college applications. No longer untouchable, instead, they were struggling to get into college and gossiping about second semester dramas with me. I miss my senior friends from sophomore year, but they visit and I text them from time to time, so they’re not totally gone. Now, this year of seniors has been the most fun to watch. We didn’t observe from a distance this year – we were beside them, or at least as close as we could be this time around. From JanTerm to after-school activities or early morning meetings, I consider these seniors to be the best year yet.

At the beginning of the year I barely even recognized Lauren and Tyler, but now I can’t imagine any other co-chairs (I can’t wait for Ava and Philips to take over next year, of course). As applications come out for Wildcats next year, I can’t wait to see my friends on the floor during pep rallies, but I know I’ll miss Caroline, Ava, Hana, Ellie, and Quinn. As the Theater Arts Celebration and MAC/WAC final assembly quickly approach on April 27, I will dearly miss my theater seniors and fearless MAC and WAC leads, James, Chase, Laura, and Sarabeth. Finally, as the typically absurd amount of spring sports playoffs approaches, I wish all of the senior players good luck on your final season that will hopefully be filled with only wins.

Having already been through watching my senior friends get accepted and rejected right and left from top schools in the country, I know it will be a thousand times worse watching my closest friends who I’ve been with for the past six years go through the same process. And while I love my sophomore friends, what is prom going to be like without admiring the senior dresses and promposals? And of course, no more dating up or getting rides from seniors. The thing is, as the years between me and the seniors have shrunk, I’ve realized there is nothing special about the seniors as students. Sure they give up after spring break and can’t stop stressing about applications in the first semester, but they still have the same qualms with teachers and peers, they still go through the late night math test struggles, and they still cling to anything curved (shoutout to my BC Calculus seniors with the craziest senioritis getting us juniors a great curve!)

In the last week of our normal school year, I look forward to Dog Day, College Shirt Day, Kindergarten Day, and the seniors final day with the mudslide. Knowing that this is the last year I will have older friends to follow along on the journey that is senior year, and that soon that’ll be myself and my closest friends, I want to say goodbye to the class of ’23 and good luck.

P.S. Please visit us!!

Edited by Helen Slawson