It’s this time of year. 

This time of year gets people.

That gets me.

The once impeccable word choice dulls. Our word count dwindles. The calendar, once sporadic with yellow highlighted stories, now becomes a daily occurrence. 

Motivation is running low, social batteries are even lower, and students are starting to dry out. 

Scraping our brains trying to find more to give, yet afraid it won’t be enough to keep our teachers happy.

“Just try your best.”

But my best isn’t the same best it used to be when I was a freshman desperately trying to grow up, a sophomore passionate about her goals, or even a junior incredibly excited to be treated like an upperclassman. 

It’s this time of year that I start to question how much my effort is worth. It’s this time of year that hates myself for signing up for that AP class. It’s this time of year that I start daydreaming about the sun only to realize I had a snow day last week. 

The slight glimmer of spring, my birthday, prom, graduation, and yet, here I am, stationary in the weeks leading up. Some might describe this time with a cliché, saying, “the calm before the storm,” but not me. 

To me, this time is going through the motions, pressing snooze on my alarm clock, debating all the ways I could skip first hour, avoiding turning on my light, and refusing to change out of my pajamas until I absolutely have to. I sit in my warm car for 10 minutes longer than I used to, similar to how I stay in the TCT room rather than walking around.

All in a failed attempt to avoid the school that has hosted me for the past four years; however, despite my best efforts, here I sit on the infamous brown couch in my first hour writing this column.

Word choice is dull as ever. Word count dwindling as it always does this time of year. Searching pending for all the highlighted yellow stories. Wondering how I am going to feel when I walk out of here for the last time. 

I am not trying to be ungrateful for the time I have spent here. The lessons I have learned, both sitting in a classroom and out in the real world. The teachers who have cared, and the ones who haven’t. The friends that came and the friends that left. Living out my middle school dreams of finally attending not one, but every school dance that has ever happened at FHC. 

I am grateful.

But sometimes, that isn’t enough this time of year; sometimes my best isn’t enough.