As I am sitting at my screen, my room is lit by two sole pale lights. One is the ceiling fan that drives me mad with its lack of hue, and the other a blank Google doc: an essay I haven’t written. That’s how the past four months have been.

February has blended into March and into May; with just shy of a week left, all I can say is that I’m so happy. I know that the friends that have found me will miss my chaotic presence, but it will probably be one-sided.

Sure, I’ll miss my friends. I’ll miss seeing them every day, especially when some of them go off to college, and then it might be one a month, maybe more. That will hurt, I know, but for once in my life, I’ll be living, not just alive.

School has honestly been nothing but a plague on me for at least the past four years. I’ll be working full time⁠—or at least I plan to—but I’ll actually have time for my hobbies. Yeah, for once in my life I won’t have to worry about managing my time between two jobs with one bleeding into my personal time.

To be able to just play video games by myself on a big screen is such a simple joy, but it’s not one I’ve practiced this year; I know because the last game I played on my switch was Metroid Dread.

Yet some of school will be missed, of course. When will I play my saxophone in a band again? When will I be able to write like I can for The Central Trend? How can I go without needing to wake up before 7:15 every morning, but always doing so on weekends?

What a pain that will be, to no longer wake up before I’m ready, to have the time to take care of myself physically and mentally. 

I’ve always known I was ready to be out of school, and I know that it will come with some hurt, but for me, I know that the good will be great, and the bad will fade away. Since it will be some time, I guess a proper goodbye is in order.

Goodbye to the band: I’ve spent hundreds of hours with you all, and playing with those who are better than me has been an honor. 

Goodbye to jazz: the one class I had to take. The one class that had always been an escape from any issues I had going on⁠—a place where I was allowed to be happy without any catch.

Goodbye to my favorite teachers: I won’t say any names, but I’m sure you’ll know who you are. Thanks for making my education great. 

Goodbye to the TCT staff: thanks for supporting me in my writing and always pushing me forward. I couldn’t ask for a better set of peers to have pushed me out of my comfort zone.

Goodbye to the friends I won’t see again: I know that all of you care for me, I know that I always have a home for you all, but I’m moving and I’m taking my whole life with me!

Goodbye to the place that I never loved:  a place where I have been trapped for years, yet⁠ I kept my head, life, and soul all alive. Though I had to hide away, representing everything until I couldn’t hold anything else. Though I had to conform to someone else’s ideals. 

Goodbye to FHC, the people, the ideals, the building, all of it. I don’t think I would survive another week in these halls, but the light at the end of the tunnel is there; I see it. I want everyone to know that you can make it through, no matter what it is, or how hard it seems, and I’m not sorry that you’ll have to do it without me.