Thanks For Helping Me Grow

Mckenna Romick, Staff writer

It is my last day of high school and my emotions are literally everywhere. All the memories from the past four years start to flow through my mind. The good, the bad, and everything in between. A lot of lessons are learned in high school and I’m not just talking the lessons we are supposed to soak in everyday from our teachers. Noticed how I said “supposed to” because for me, school was extremely hard to get anything soaked into my brain.

I’ve learned from high school that you can only learn what you allow yourself to. Your teachers and parents can only teach so much. Lessons will try to prevent you from the worst results, but most cannot learn a lesson unless experiencing it themselves and they can’t get anything out of the lesson unless they want to.

I’ve learned from high school that friends are going to come and go. Coming into high school, I would have never of guessed the friends I have lost and the friends that I have become extremely close to. There is just something about high school that eventually shows everyone’s true colors. All the drama and the fights have all taught me that you simply cannot make everyone happy, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. A quote that best describes this lesson that I learned in highschool is “keep your friends close, but your enemies closer”. It is sad, but this quote is a lesson well taught in the high school setting and it is a lesson that can really help a person out through the high school drama.

I’ve learned from high school that sports aren’t everything. Coming into high school I wanted to be the best volleyball player and best track athlete I could be. With a few set backs due to surgery, I thought it would get better. Little did I know, I was about to fall in love with two completely different sports. I fell in love with tennis as a sophomore, and I am so glad that I was unable to run track because otherwise I would have never had have the experiences that I have had with the tennis team. One of the hardest decisions in my high school sports career was to run cross country my last year over playing one more year of volleyball. Volleyball has been my favorite sport since 5th grade and this year I decided that I didn’t feel like I was getting out what I was putting back into that sport. I realized that the one sport I loved was having a negative impact on my life, so I made a change and it was one of the best decisions I have ever made in my high school career. Some changes are for the best.

From cross country, I learned that there is always a finish line. Even when it feels like the pain is never going to end, it will. The weirdest part about this lesson is that you would never think that someday you would catch yourself smiling about that pain, but someday you will. I also learned from cross country that you can do whatever you put your mind to. Oh, and I also learned that 5ks against a bunch of high school girls are some of the longest races, ever.

High school has been an emotional rollercoaster for me, that might actually be an understatement, but the lessons have been learned and there is no going back. In this one building, I have cried, yelled, laughed, and today is the last day for any of that. Here is to the class of 2017, I know we have been a pain and I apologize to our teachers, our parents, and anyone else along the way. But without any of you, we couldn’t have done it, so thank you. Thank you for the stress and the pain, the laughs and smiles. Thank you mom and dad for literally everything. Thank you to the community for being supportive and for everything you have put into the public schools. Thank you teachers for all the lessons. I thank everyone for helping me grow. Goodbye Alliance High School this is my farewell.

Sincerely,

McKenna Romick

Staff Writer <3