I’m not very good at goodbyes. I always cry, or hug the person who’s leaving, for a really long time. I don’t know, though, how exactly to say goodbye to a place. Or how to be the one who’s leaving.

I’ve gone to St. Philip the Apostle School for nine years. Nine years brim-filled with happiness and sadness and firsts, and now, lasts.

I think maybe the hardest part of saying goodbye to a place is that you’re kind of saying goodbye to all the experiences you’ve made there. All the memories. And that’s really hard. Like, how do you even do that, say goodbye to memories? Of course, I’ll always remember free time and learning to read, meeting my friends and getting crushes, my first report card and that day when I got glasses and suddenly I could read the words on the board. But now all of those things won’t just be down the hall or out the doors. My memories here will be so far away from my life after I walk out of the back church doors in my red cap and gown. Locked in another world.

But this whole leaving thing, it’s not so bad. Because I’ll still have the experiences, the memories. Maybe I won’t be next door to the room where I first read a book or saw chicks hatch, but those things will always, always, be in my heart.