They say the most valuable thing in life is time, and this year, we learned that the hard way. You never really appreciate something until it’s gone—and then it’s too late. 

That’s exactly how I’m feeling about my four years of high school right now. Senior year of high school is what you look forward to the most because that’s where all the fun is supposed to happen and where it all comes together, like senior night for sports, prom, graduation, committing to a college, and beach week.

Unfortunately we don’t get to experience a lot of those due to the pandemic that’s going on in the world. Even though I won’t get to experience some of these things I still enjoyed my time in high school.

Freshman year was by far my favorite year of high school. My most memorable memory from freshman year is playing football at lunch with friends. Coming from middle school where you had to sit in the lunchroom, having the freedom of being able to go anywhere was a great feeling. 

Me and my friends would always meet up outside at lunch from the very first day of school. One day someone brought a football and we decided to play a game and then it just became a daily tradition. We played everyday regardless of the weather. We played in the sun, rain, and snow. Why we did it I’ll never understand, but we did it. 

I don’t remember much from sophomore year, but the highlight of my sophomore year was definitely football season. Sophomore year was my best individual season of football and the team also had a good year in terms of winning. The team started off the season 5-0 and even though we lost the last three games, we finished the season 5-3. 

On JV they don’t keep stats, but if you ask anyone on the team they would agree that I led the team in tackles, or was at least part of the top three in tackles. I ended up being one of the people called up to varsity at the end of the season, and I played in my first high school playoff game. 

Junior year was a very stressful year, but the highlight of my year once again was football season. It was our best season record wise in my four years at this school, but also one of the best seasons in Watkins Mill history. 

We beat Seneca for the first time in school history, so it’s cool that I get to be part of a historic team. We also had a close game with Damascus which usually doesn’t happen because they usually blow everyone out. 

Besides the stressful work junior year was a pretty good year overall. It was also the year that I decided to take journalism and Mrs. Confino helped me realize writing isn’t as bad as I thought, so I ended up joining the newspaper. I also feel like I learned more about grammar in journalism than I did in English class.

There isn’t much to talk about for senior year since it was cut short due to the pandemic. The only memorable thing from senior year is during football season when we beat Blake in a “revenge game” after they ended our season in my junior year. 

One thing I do regret about high school is not being more social sooner. Before senior year I wasn’t very social. I was just focused on getting good grades and playing football. This year I decided to be more social since it was my last year. I even decided to play lacrosse just to try something new. 

I feel like I missed out on the opportunity to create memories by not being more social throughout high school. If I could give a piece of advice to an incoming freshman it would be to always make sure to appreciate what you have before it’s too late, and make sure to be social. You never know what memories or friendships you’ll create. (Also make sure to join the newspaper.)