I know for a fact that I’m a nostalgic person. Ask anybody I know (heck, ask me) and they’ll tell you I’m the sappiest person they know. Not only does this mean that my cringe factor, unfortunately, exponentially increases when I’m feeling sentimental, but also that I tend to live in the past.

If you encounter me these days, chances are that I’m reminiscing on old memories with friends, talking about how sad I am that we’re leaving. As my high school graduation date draws nearer, so does my sense of apprehension surrounding it. I find myself dreading the knowledge that the end of the year is coming. 

I think especially when you’re a second-semester senior, you start counting lasts: the last time you’ll ever take a chemistry test, the last time you’ll ever late-night cram for APs, the last time you’ll ever edit a story for El Estoque. Life becomes a veritable list of “lasts” that become sadder with each one you come across, and the realization that your high school experience will be done and over within a few short weeks comes into startling clarity.

After all, this is a situation we will never be in again. At what point in my life will I again be in a classroom with 20 people I’ve grown up with for the last decade, going to the same classes and essentially living the same lives? When’s the next time I’ll be able to immediately strike up a conversation with my new table group because although we’re not exactly friends, we still have the sort of intrinsic camaraderie that only comes from years of knowing one another? 

It was bittersweet for me to think about it then, and it is still bittersweet for me to think about it now. But as I’ve spent time thinking about this — after all, what do second-semester seniors have but time — I’m coming to realize how strange it all sounds. I still have weeks until graduation, yet here I am lamenting all the things I’ll miss at college. Although it sounds stupid in retrospect, I’m mourning something that hasn’t even happened yet, instead of focusing on enjoying the time I still have. It’s the same with my feelings about living here in the Bay.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I love Cupertino. Yes, it’s home to an empire of test prep centers and a host of grade-grubbing parents more opportunistic than the moms on College Confidential. Yes, there’ve been sleepless nights spent studying (and frankly crying) over my chemistry class. 

But there was also the night before my AP Psychology exam when my friends and I lay on the floor calling out every stage of Freud’s psychosexual theory, with Korean fried chicken glaze sticky on our fingers in some sort of giggly, chicken-induced study delirium. There’s the boba shop that we went to so often I could rattle off my order half-asleep —– passionfruit green tea, half ice, 30% sugar, with lychee jelly and boba, in case you’re wondering —– and the car rides where my friends made me laugh so hard my stomach ached and tears pooled in my eyes. I’ve made friends and memories that I know will last a lifetime and met such amazing teachers and classmates.

Cupertino is a city that means so much to me. It’ll be hard for me to leave come August, to know that I’m leaving all these experiences behind. But I don’t want Cupertino and my experience at MVHS to become something to compare my college experience to like some sort of omnipotent, malcontent ghost, or to spend college chasing the same highs I felt in high school (pun not intended). But the only other option is to just accept that my time at MVHS is ending; which is exactly what I don’t want to happen. Yet what I’m coming to realize is that it’s the inherent finality of all experiences that makes them precious. It sounds so obvious, and everyone says it, but it’s hard to internalize until you experience it yourself.

I treasure my high school experience because I know it’s finite. I’ve only realized how many aspects of MVHS I’ve underappreciated because I know I’m about to graduate. I cherish my remaining time with my friends and classmates because I know we may not see each other for a long time. The finality of our experiences is a good thing; it shouldn’t be something I’m running from.

In the end (and I acknowledge the irony of the word choice), I want to learn to appreciate the moments as they come in the present; not feel sorrow for the fading memories I know they might become in the future.