Editor’s note: Senior goodbye columns reflect on senior staffers’ experiences through high school and allow them an opportunity to share what they have learned with the school. Each senior Red Ledger staffer presents his or her personal perspective. One staffer’s column will be posted every day until all are published.

All things must come to an end.

There is no doubt about that.

It doesn’t matter what it is.

There are jobs you will perform for the last time. Games you will play for the last time. And people you will see for the last time. Because all things must come to an end.

And here I am at the end of 13 years of public school.

I don’t think it’ll be anytime soon that it finally hits me that this part of my life is over forever. My entire lifespan has been occupied for all but five years with going to school at Lovejoy. And whether it was Puster, Sloan Creek, Willow Springs, or the high school, it was all Lovejoy.

I’m not sure how to respond. Even though I’ve had a long time to think about it. Thirteen years, to be exact.

I suppose this is my cue to just do whatever the heck I want. My life won’t be nearly as arbitrary. I can choose my college, my major, my classes. I can choose where to go in my free time, and what to do with it.

To tell the truth, it does feel very liberating.

But there will, of course, be things I miss. I’ll miss eating my lunch on familiar benches outside. I’ll miss the rush of release brought about by the 4:15 bell. I’ll miss the halls, and the stairwells, and the classrooms. And, needless to say, I will miss a great many people. Too many to name.

I say that at the same time that I say “Good riddance, you miserable school, good-bye forever and shove off!” I say it because as gratifying as it is to be done, I know that it will only be a matter of time before I’m longing for the good old days of high school.

Do I have regrets? Not really. Nothing huge. I mean, certainly some mistakes were made over the course of the last four years, but it’s by no means anything that I’ll be dwelling on in my deathbed. But still, there were plenty of things I could’ve done different.

If I had to say one thing I should’ve done differently, I shouldn’t have been so self-conscious all the time. Because that discomfort is very short-term, and it’s a tad frustrating to look back and think about all the time I spent fussing about something I know longer care about.

But, with that said, if I had the power to go back and change anything, I wouldn’t. Because the decisions I made, and the holes I fell into, and the lessons I learned made me who I am today.

And I like who I am. I do.

And now, with high school over, there’s a big world out there, waiting for me to conquer it.

Like I said before, all things must come to an end. And if you’re a junior, sophomore, freshman, or even lower than that, that means that your public schooling will also draw to a close, and one day, you’ll be in my shoes.

So the most important advice I can give you about high school, corny as it is, is to be what exactly what you are. Nothing else.

And, when you’re ready to take on the world, come as you are. We’ll be glad to have you.