Dear Class of 2021,

I’m sure by now you have heard enough seniors complaining to drive you insane. And that’s okay because I admit we have been a little annoying. But please don’t just brush us off, or roll your eyes whenever we say we’re going to raid the school in May, because it comes from a place of loss that you don’t understand.

I know this seems dramatic, we’re just teenagers sobbing about not being able to go back to school while there are people who have it a lot worse, and that’s true, but that doesn’t take away from the heartbreak we feel at not being able to do the things all of the classes we knew before us, and all the classes we know after us, will be able to do. I know you all feel the same way we did. In freshman year, you finally become friends with people outside of your grade, and finally get to see first-hand the passion that’s put into screaming “SENIORS!” at Assembly for the first time and how crazy seniors go for Wacky Week in October, among many things. Sophomore year, you start thinking about what IB classes you’re going to take, and how that will shape you into an overly-stressed and whiny junior and senior, as it has done to all who do the IB. And then by the time you’re juniors, you’ve become quite close to the senior class, and you face that bittersweet goodbye in May, when they’re off to begin their lives and you are tasked with “ruling the rest of the high school.”

In all three of those years, you also dream of very specific moments, waiting for you when it’s your turn to be a senior. The day you get into college, surrounded by friends or family, overcome with joy, no matter if it’s a safety or your dream school, because you know you’re going to college, at least. The day your crush asks you to Prom, or when you muster the courage to ask them yourself. The day you’re finally done with your Math exam, or English exam, or whichever class’s exams you have been stressing about for the last two years. Senior week, where you are supposed to “learn how to be an adult,” but really it’s just a lot of free time with your friends. The Bell Ceremony, the perfect closure and proper goodbye to the school that has given you so much. And finally, Graduation; a day spent celebrating how far your class has come, and the day you say goodbye to all you have known, and come to love.

I know these dreams are not just ones that we, as the senior class, have had. These are dreams all of you have had at least once in your high school life. So now I ask you to close your eyes, and think. Three weeks ago, you and your friends were laughing together at the lunch table, joking about having your last day of school in March. Last week, you log onto Zoom, not knowing when you’re next going to see your friends or the school you’ve gone to every single day of your life for some time. Then this week, exams were canceled, and suddenly if you’re still waiting for college responses, or you have conditional acceptances, a new wave of panic sets within you because you have no idea how your grades are going to be calculated. And over the course of the last few days, people are telling you the school’s not going to be opened by May.

Some of us will never get to experience the joy of getting our first college acceptance and have our heads shaven or be drawn all over by our friends. We’ll never have “the night of our lives” known as Senior-Year Prom. We’ll never have the weight of that one class we dreaded going to for the last two years disappear off our shoulders. And we are even facing the possibility of having to continue that class all the way through May. We won’t have that one last week with our friends, or the proper send-off from Graded, or wave to our beaming family and friends as we strut down the main gym to the rhythm of “Pomp and Circumstance.”

Our senior year was ripped away from us at the last second, and we’re not getting it back. So, Class of 2021, I dedicate this to you because I want you to enjoy every second of your senior year, in case it also gets taken away from you, and that you embrace those people you surround yourself with, make amends with those you need to, and never dread the early mornings you had to do extra thinking. You’re going to miss every second. So, please, do it for us. Truly live the experience we never could.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Class of 2020