Take one last walk through our halls of acceptance

I remember everything about that first day. I was wearing a green shirt, skinny jeans and silver pointy flats. I had cried on the way to school out of nervousness, and sat by a boy named James at the welcoming assembly. I took the "just be friendly" advice my mom had given me just a little too far, which was apparent by the weird looks I kept getting when I would introduce myself to random hallway passers-by.

Walking into the halls of Live Oak High School for the first time as a freshman is the same way I way I am walking out of them: with my head held high and completely, irrevocably terrified.

While much is happening on the Live Oak campus, such as the softball team gearing up for playoffs, many seniors packing for the trip to San Diego or even the construction finally starting to look like a real school, it is the feelings that are lingering around LOHS that are noteworthy.

Feelings of excitement: excitement to be finished with Senior Projects, excitement to walk across that stage on June 3 and know that all of the hard work has paid off, excitement to be free.

Feelings of maturity: maturity to go to college, maturity to stay out past 11 on a school night, maturity to be an individual. Most importantly, however, are the hidden feelings of dread: dreading to have to make our own breakfast in the morning, dreading to not have someone constantly reminding you to do your homework, dreading this freedom and maturity, knowing that with them comes responsibility and reality.

Senior Markus Hackett commented on these feelings, summarizing the catch-22 perfectly, saying, "While I know that life has to offer me much more than high school does, it is hard to imagine not waking up and coming to LOHS every day, not seeing everyone that I have seen since kindergarten."

For many, it is the end of an era. Just like the seniors will be graduating and changing, so will the school that we so excitedly entered. It will no longer be the run-down yet heart-felt school that I have grown up in, but rather, a place full of actual classrooms and walkways — with windows and everything. Students and staff alike are filled with the wonder of the unknown: the unknown of the future, of the people we will become.

One thing that will always be known, however, and will always remain is the diverse, welcoming and caring attitude that Live Oak possesses. No matter where we go in life, Live Oak High School will always be a part of our past, present and future, a part of us that we can look back on and remember just how it felt to walk through the halls of acceptance.

Melissa Anderson is a senior at Live Oak High School. This is her final column for the Education section.