This is it. The final year. The year that everyone calls the year of ‘lasts’. The last West-Central football game, last powderpuff game, last pep assembly, last homecoming and Prom, and last softball season. This is the part of the year where you start to count down your last week to the day you walk the podium for graduation. As the big day comes, it feels like yesterday I was a freshman walking into the old school thinking “I get to relive my dads legacy along with my uncles and many more.”

High school is the first step of being in the real world, and I was never ready for that. The real world was no joke and still is, and yet that was the only thing I ever wanted to see. My mother always told me that the real world is a lot harder than you think and there is plenty more I have to learn, but 15 year old me thought she ruled the world. I was lucky to have parents who went to high school and college.  I always had resources to help me out. I wasn’t faced with as many challenges as others because my parents always seemed to know how to solve them for me because I wasn’t ready to solve them myself. 

There is one memory that will live with me forever and that’s my softball season. Softball is the one thing that has seen the most memorable moments in my life. Going to tryouts, not knowing if I’ll even make JV. Driving every day after school for three months to the GEYL field until junior year where we got blessed with our own softball field. I was able to grow as a player and see that growth through the season. I worked hard to be a four-year varsity player and got the chance to leave my last game on the GWHS softball field, where I ended my 10+ softball career. 

Those four years were not easy. I can’t even remember the amount of times I dreaded going to school and now I’ve come to the end of my senior year. I won’t leave this place with just memories but hopefully good grades. Four years of work had to get me somewhere, along with the AP classes that no one will ever forget. The one thing I’m most proud of is making it through high school, knowing that I didn’t always put myself on the same level as everyone else, that I tried to be above those who went for average. 

Now my four years have paid off, to now go spend another four years at CSU. Greeley West has given me many joys and many tears, like every school should. It was a good enough school to not have me want to transfer to a different school, and a great school to know I’m still in contact with teachers that don’t work here any more. Don’t be afraid to try new things, you never know where they’re going to put you in life. Lastly, don’t be that guy.