If someone my freshman year had asked where I saw myself in June of my senior year, I would have given a lot of the typical answers, and yet I couldn’t have been more wrong. I don’t think anyone in the world could have predicted this. Even thinking back to ten months ago when I started Newspaper I, I never would have guessed what the future held.

I signed up for Newspaper largely on a whim. I have never thought of myself as an exceptionally good writer, and grammar is my archnemesis, but the experiences described by Madison Foley, Andrea Tyson, and Ms. McGee compelled me to fill out an application. My high school legacy is nothing like I thought it would be, but I am so grateful that my time as a Legacy writer is a part of it.

I spent the last three months of my senior year at home, but I did not do it alone. The unity between my fellow classmates of the graduating class of 2020 and with the Legacy staff has been what’s pulled me through. I don’t think there has been a more universally united graduating class, across the world, like the one this year. Everyone has been going through their own hardships, but we are in this together.

The fact that in a few short days I will have officially graduated high school still has yet to sink in. Everything feels largely unresolved, so even writing this send-off feels surreal. I’m definitely not the first to make the comparison between Legacy and a family, and certainly not the lasts, but over the last couple of months, that has never been more important nor more real. These have been trying times on all families, and the care and support shared by the Legacy staff and Ms. McGee have shown how truly connected and important the Legacy family is.

Sometimes you create your legacy, and sometimes you’re thrust into it during a global pandemic; regardless of how it happened I am honored and proud to say that Legacy is a part of mine.