Senior year was supposed to be my goodbye year. The year I said goodbye to my favorite teachers, my friends and the halls. I had worked so hard from freshman year to now, and it is all gone. With a single “poof,” East seemed nonexistent.

With everything going on right now, I completely understand the decisions that have been made to attempt to ensure our safety. Even though I understand, this does not mean I am happy with these decisions.

I remember being nervous on my first day of freshman year. I was going from a single hallway with the same teachers and peers who I had spent two years with to a school that would integrate everyone together. This was a terrifying moment, but little did I know I would make some of the best memories within these four years.

That first day of freshman year feels like yesterday, but I remember that day thinking that senior year seemed so far away. To have my senior year incomplete feels like my entire K-12 education will be incomplete. I could care less about prom being canceled and the adjustment of senior projects, but what I do want is to walk across a stage in front of my classmates and their families – to have the recognition for all of the stress I have gone through to achieve everything I have accomplished.

When I say blood, sweat and tears went into my education, I literally mean it. The amount of times I cried because of stress and broke out into a sweat because I was going into speed mode on a project cannot be shown in numbers, and do not even get me started on the paper cuts I got from rummaging through my folders. High school was tough, but it showed that I can be tougher.

Ironically, I have attended every East graduation during my high school career. I got to witness all of these amazing people be recognized, to turn their tassels and to hug one another as they move on in their new chapter of life. I may sound selfish, but that is what we all deserve. We deserve the recognition for the work we put into our education.

Again, I understand with the circumstances at hand, the class of 2020 cannot and will not get the graduation we all wanted. While I am upset, I am happy to finally move on into a new chapter of my life. This will definitely be a senior year to remember and who knows, in twenty years we may all look back at this and realize how unique our senior year was and that we were a part of history.