I have been so excited to write this senior column since the second semester of my freshman year. Ever since May of 2021, the end of my first semester on staff, I have been dreaming of writing this page. And yet now, when it is finally time to sum up my experience at this school, on this amazing newspaper staff, I’m drawing a blank.

Over the last couple of months, maybe since the beginning of my last semester of high school, I have started to have this creeping feeling in the pit of my stomach, a feeling that there is no point in coming to school anymore, that nothing I will do from January to May is really going to matter.

I’m already committed to a college, my grades and GPA are in a good place and I am (mostly) caught up in all my classes. So why should I even be going to school? And that’s when I realized it: whether by design or by accident, this very laid-back senior year has given me the time to pursue so much outside of academics.

Namely, my interpersonal relationships. Being able to spend so much extra time with my girlfriend, my group of close friends, my bandmates, and my family has allowed me to deepen those relationships in a way I never could have if I was taking five AP classes.

I feel so lucky to have been afforded all this extra time — time to hang out with people and go to coffee shops and movies and go on long walks and eat good food (and bad fast food) and go to concerts and stay up late and sleep in and so on and so on.

I feel so lucky to have been on this staff for three and a half years. Every August, I have missed the seniors of the year past, and now that I am one of those seniors, I don’t know how to feel.

In a weird way, I think it will be hard to separate in my brain the time I have been on staff for The Tiger Print and the time that I will be on staff for the Baker Orange.

I feel so lucky to have been co-editors-in-chief with Ava and Rhylan, to have had Harris as our assistant editor, and to have had Mrs. Huss to help us out along the way.

So thank you, Blue Valley, for not making me do anything at school this year. It was much more valuable than you could ever know.