And So It Goes...

It was... bittersweet

There are so many "firsts" in your life that you will always remember, whether that be first best friend, first date, first failure, etc. I will always remember the first day of class at Millbrook, and that stab of nervousness I felt as I walked into the cafeteria for the first time and realized I knew absolutely no one. But four years later, despite all the stress we have endured and the time spent complaining about various teachers or assignments, I can say the experience consisted overall of good moments. So rather than dwell on the few negatives, I decided to mention a few small moments and people from each year that hold special places in my heart that transcend any of the bad.

Who knew that my first friend I made at Millbrook Freshman year would end up being my best? I do not remember the exact moment I met Rebecca Irene, but I am confident it started with a timid "Hey I'm Kaitlyn, do you wanna warm up with me?" at the first day of JV tennis practice. We often ended up playing together, and she stuck around warming up with me even though she has always been 10x better. Even though we did not have any classes together Freshman year, we still managed to remain friends until we got to know each other even more over the course of the past three years. Now we have countless memories together, but those are stories for another time! Secondly, another key moment I had Freshman year was with the aforementioned cafeteria debacle. I had second lunch on the first A-day, and decided to sit with the equally-as-sky Maria Alejandra (back when she was shy, that is). I recall pretending to know a lot about One Direction and 5 Seconds of Summer to have a decent conversation with her, because all other small talk led back to them in the end. But nevertheless, I am still eternally grateful that she was nice enough to let me sit with her and made my first day of high school so much easier and fun.

Sophomore year is where I had some of my favorite moments, but I think some of the best that involved IB people had to be with my English group. By happenstance, Mrs. Cortwright placed Anna Thompson, Lindsey Mallard, Graham Watkins, and I in the same group and we all got along very well. In fact, we got along so well that during the last three quarters we never moved tables and only sat with each other. One of the memories that stands out the most is after Noah Showalter got a purple Bojangles t-shirt from his friend's grandmother's attic, and asked around the cafeteria if anyone wanted it. Naturally, I was not one to turn down a perfectly good shirt to use as a pajama top, so I took it and brought it back to my English group with pride. Rather than just making a comment on it, Graham decided to take it from me and put it on. As this was a size small shirt and Graham was wearing football pads, it was basically a tight crop top on him. He looked absolutely ridiculous. Anna, Lindsey, and I just laughed at him the entire period much to the teacher's annoyance, but I could see the smile she was trying to hide everytime she looked at us.

To be honest, Junior year was kind of a blur with all the assignments we had to do, but I managed to make a few more friends somewhere along the way. I first met Alexandra Butler Freshman year, but our friendship really started to pick up last year. I remember being quite intimidated by her, since she was Vice President of Junior Class Council and always seemed to have multiple people talking to her at once. But after talking with her in class, while she taught me to knit, or even while picking collards and okra at Goodwill farms, I learned she was not intimidating at all; she's just a really cool person to have the most random conversations with. As for a weird memory involving another friend, Danny Andrussier, there was this one lunch in Ms. Clemmer's room that stands out. I am not quite sure if he was trying to make Rebecca and I laugh, but he started drawing on the white board with string cheese as a marker. I guess he was unsatisfied when we paid little attention, so he went over to his friend Michael Pasca, who was eating a banana, and lightly shoved it upwards to smash the banana on the tip of his nose. It did not make a mess or anything, and only resulted in a slightly baffled Michael, but I feel like this memory encapsulates my friendship with Danny. He is always unpredictable and doing whatever it takes to make someone laugh, and even of his methods are odd sometimes, it just adds to his fun personality.

There are a lot of stand out memories from Senior Year, and I got to know quite a few people even more through shared lunches and classes. Some of these people include Iman Breland, Quentin Meritt, Chris Vogel, and Keerti Kalluru, who all ended up being in my Canterbury Tales Group. Even though our movie was extremely cringy to everyone but us, we all had so much fun running around in super hero costumes in public. Shout out to the time where Keerti stood on top of a rock as Wonder Woman while spinning an iPhone Charger as her golden lasso of truth, or when I threw a plastic table at Chris since he was dressed as a creepy old man poking Iman with a stick. As you can see, a lot of my favorite moments revolve around school, and while some people may think that is sad, I find absolutely nothing wrong with it. I will be the first to say I did enjoy high school, and though I cannot wait for Summer and college, I will miss everyone I have ever met here (whether they are listed here publicly or listed in my heart). My departure from Millbrook is thus bittersweet, because I am more than ready to leave but do not want to say my goodbyes. But I know with confidence that even though moving forward is terrifying, it is also exciting because of how many new friends I will make while still cherishing the old.