Freshman year was the epitome of my high school career. I was introduced to so many new things: people, teachers and several words that slowly erased my innocence. We were all slowly emerging from the awkward middle school phase and getting rid of our “brace faces” and Aeropostale apparel. Freshman year marked the beginning of a new chapter, and now we’ve finished the book, absorbed all the material and are moving on.

Starting out, you had to make new friends and establish a persona. You had to explore new things and get a feel for what high school was about; you made new friends, who hopefully let you wear hoop earrings if you wanted to; you developed depth and character.

After getting situated, you experienced conflict. You had your standard person vs. person when cliques started to disassemble, person vs. nature involving all the fantastic snow days and the great flood of 2014, and, of course, person vs. self to figure out who you want to be. Through all this conflict, the idea that you can breeze through life without trying proves to be just a myth. Though we try to cheat the system (writing papers in one night and talking your way out of things), we should have eventually realized that everything requires effort, whether for protagonistic or antagonistic purposes.

Along the way we shared our journey through the pages with everyone we encountered. We grew up together, and though some of us barely had any interaction with each other, we were all parts of each other’s stories as secondary characters.

Now, our story has come to an end, and we reflect and review. All of the situations we faced and how we dealt with them reveal our true character. I doubt we all remained static on our voyages through high school; we all changed in some way, became exposed to something that altered us hopefully for the better.

The plot twists in our stories obviously vary, but, hopefully, through them we have all reached an epiphany or anagnorisis. I would hope we do not remain as Holden Caulfield, paralyzed and unable to make the transition from kid to adult, and we should not stay fixated on the past like Gatsby. We should learn from our mistakes and live with no regrets no matter how cliché that may sound. Looking back, I really do not regret anything. I take pride in the fact I have tripped up or fallen down every staircase in the high school. It takes pure skill to accomplish this or at least that is what I keep telling myself. I love where I ended up and who has shared the journey with me.

So, as the book of high school comes to a close, I hope we all do not simply shut it and run but brace ourselves to open a new one.