The Diary of a Broken High School Senior

This is a photograph of one entry of the journal that I kept during the lockdown in Spring of 2020.

I was a member of the class of 2020 at what I believe is the most incredible school imaginable. Perhaps after thirteen years I am far from unbiased, but the sense of community offered by my beautiful, 1,200 student Pre-K through 12th grade school is unmatched. Now, envision a girl who walked this campus with her childhood best friends, siblings, and cousins, and, rather frequently, her mother who made an effort to lead the Parents Association countless years. Overlay a history of homesickness and a global pandemic, and the product is March 2020 me when this blissful chapter of my life was abruptly ripped away, propelling me prematurely towards college at a school I had already decided could never fill the shoes of my high school. This tear stained entry was written on April 16th, when my state governor officially shut down all schools for the remainder of the school year. I had spent the last four weeks with a countdown on my iPhone tracking the days until I could return to school. The countdown had to be adjusted at one point when “coronacation” was extended from one to three weeks. Yet I remained the voice of naive optimism, unwilling to entertain the unfortunate reality that everyone around me had already accepted. This may seem dramatic and theatrical. But this same optimist in me hopes that, should anyone stumble upon my story, they will “respect what [they] cannot know” (Saidiya Hartman). There is much more to this story and my history than could ever be relayed to another person. But with the right lens, great value can be extracted from every story, no matter how many dried tears dot its pages.

Hartman, Saidiya. "Venus in Two Acts." Small Axe, vol. 12 no. 2, 2008, p. 1-14. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/article/241115.

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Me

2020-04-16