It recently occurred to me that I only have so many more weeks to share my columns, seven to be numerical. After that, being published on any forum, much less a renowned school newspaper with an automatic audience, may never happen again. 

So I don’t want to waste any time with fluff, and I am going to try not to. 

In trying to decide what to share this week, I thought of several niche topics, such as “how fast food helps with anxiety-centered eating disorders.” However, I don’t feel this topic is particularly pertinent to the general population of people who may be reading this, and so I will talk about something else. 

As a senior, what I share is going to be centered on that, on having gotten through childhood and adolescence and thirteen years of public school. This is because if you’re reading this, high school is likely of particular interest to you, whereas my eating habits are not. 

I don’t remember a lot of my time in high school, when I really think back. I’m not sure if this is a personal impediment, or something a lot of people experience to a significant degree. What I am sure of is that when friends reflect warmly “remember that time..,” I usually don’t. 

That’s not to say I don’t remember other things, though. My memory of the way that things felt is very keen, still. I remember the feeling walking into APES gave me, that cool assurance that it would be a good rest of the day, because I had had dozens of “good rest of the days” there before that to suffice it. 

More valued than any other feeling of high school is that of safety. Yes, among all the fuzzy feelings: adoration, validation, and belonging to name a few, that feeling of safety is what I have realized means the most. 

I think it is because it’s occurring to me that it’s a feeling the big bad world will not so generously provide. Teachers, good teachers, are a special breed of people, and they are harder to find in the world’s office buildings and residential halls.

They are the kind of people who you can fall asleep in front of; the kind who will turn off the lights or close the blinds if you ask; the kind who you can count on to instinctively know and understand and, more importantly, care. 

Yes, it has finally reached my grasp that those people will not populate my life in quite the happy abundance that they do so here. Thus, I can finally put my finger on what it is I feel I am already starting to miss so much. 

This, the feeling they provide, is the salve of school. I have had a begrudging attitude about school for most of my life, and anyone who looks at my attendance record can tell that bringing myself here day in and day out has been a feat. But I think that I’ve always had a hunch that teachers were the reason school was, after all, something to miss, for my regrets about missing a day usually centered around the feeling of their classroom I missed. 

I understand why freshmen and sophomores are eager to get out, but wouldn’t they think it peculiar how at the very tail end of senior year, so close to walking out the door, they will likely have a longing to linger for just a little bit longer. I won’t deny the travesties of spending eight hours here, but as long as you are legally obligated to, keep in mind what one day will be closed to you.