Homecoming is this week and all I can think about is how this is my senior year, my last year of high school. This is the last time I will take part in any of these school activities as a student. It brings a feeling of excitement and anxiety.

As a senior and member of my class’s battle of the bands, I can’t help but think this is the last time I will perform on stage in front of my school with my band, who, after four years of competing together, are now my close friends and family. Our time is ending here at Kamehameha Schools Maui.

I don’t want it to end. I’m not ready for the ‘real world’. I can barely keep my room clean.

I never really feel the anxiety of saying goodbye until the moment it happens. When I stood on stage for our battle of the bands performance, I looked out into the crowd and I could feel every bone in my body tremble and shake. It wasn’t because I was nervous or scared. It was because I was on the verge of crying knowing “this is it” — our final performance.

Goodbyes are always hard. I couldn’t even keep it together when the class of 2014 left.

I know I stress a lot and say I hate school. I know I complain about my teachers and classmates. I know I wish school didn’t exist but… I’m truly going to miss everything and everyone.

I’m going to miss struggling past the group of boys who clump in front of Kumu Kalei’s room while I head to class.

I’m going to miss Mr. Delatori calling my name because my skirt is too short (even though I bought it that way).

I’m going to miss waiting in line, which is actually one giant mob, just to get lunch.

I’m going to miss the war-like debates in Hawaiian History.

I’m going to miss it all.

Maybe it’s because I’m overly-emotional, but the realization of it coming to an end hits me hard, like a soccer ball to the gut, kicked times a million. It’s like I was pulling the rope in an intense tug-of-war, and, even though I’ve won (finally reaching the end of high school), I’ve fallen back because there’s so much momentum coming at me at once.

This year is my final year, and I plan to make each moment count. I hope my class, well, all classes for that matter, do the same. These moments we have this year and every year are our final moments. Every moment is your one last, best chance to do whatever it is that you  are doing, whether it is dressing in a costume, competing at an event, or battling it out on the court or field. Whatever we do, we need to do it with everything we’ve got.

Dress up for spirit week, go to the football games, enter Nā Hōkū, participate in extra-curricular activities, join a sport, and push yourself to do your best in all you do because, before you know it, you’ll be a senior, and your time, like ours, will be coming to an end.

Cheers to our final moments and to the moments yet to be made!