If someone were to sit me down right now and ask me how my high school experience was, I would have a few answers.

1. I couldn’t wait to get out.
2. I am NOT ready to leave.
3. How am I already 18?”

High school for me consisted of so many crazy, beautiful, sad and happy memories. In between all the class periods, football games and weekends spent with friends, I grew as a person.

I learned lessons that I will carry with me way beyond my time at EHS. My biggest lesson I’ve learned? Don’t take high school for granted.

I spent so many mornings hitting the snooze button hoping we would somehow magically have a snow day even if the forecast was sunny and 75 degrees.

Or sitting in Geo-Science wondering why I had to memorize all the names for different rocks.

Overall, I moped through a majority of high school.

Now here I sit with only a couple of days left as a senior, and I strangely wish I could go back.

I wish I could rewind time to sophomore year when I first got my driver’s license.

The feeling of doing something like driving on my own was exhilarating. Sitting behind the wheel and knowing that I could go anywhere I pleased, it’s a great feeling.

I didn’t truly experience that feeling until I turned sixteen and got behind the wheel of my parents’ car alone for the first time. For once in my life, I was in complete control. No one told me to check my mirrors or turn the music down. Complete freedom.

Looking back, I’m jealous of the underclassmen who get to experience these moments for the first time.

Just this past month, Renaissance put on a carnival for the whole school to celebrate good grades for the student body.

Naturally, as a senior who thinks they know better, I didn’t want to go.

I planned on skipping the carnival and going to lunch with my other senior friends.

It turned out I had to shoot the carnival for Design and Desktop Publishing so I had to go. I spent the afternoon snapping pictures and watching everyone have fun, and I had fun, too.

If there was one thing I could tell underclassmen who wish they could graduate already… is wait.

Stop and look around and cherish school, cherish all the friends and cherish all the teachers.

Once I walk out the doors for the last time, nothing will be the same.

There will be people I will never see again (whether I want to or not) and I and my friends will go separate ways at the end of summer.

So before you wish you could fast forward, learn from my experience. Stop and take in high school because you can only do it once.