CROSSING THE CARO-LINE : With Every Step We Take

CAROLINE REN
Editor in Chief

In my junior year, it was very easy to distance myself from both family and friends. I stocked up on a plethora of excuses for ways to avoid emotional involvement. Yet, I never communicated this frustration with others and suppressed it instead, attempting to deal with everything on my own.

Now, after so long, I have learned to speak freely of those speculations and troubles which I had so fiercely protected from intrusion in the past. I realize that my feelings of failure and jealousy and loneliness are not so singular after all, that they are only part of the human experience. This recognition is the reason I want to thank every person who has ever impacted my life for the better.

Considering every classmate who has participated in endless group projects and extracurricular activities and shared late-night homework panic, there are too many people to list by name. Whether I have grown up alongside them or have only known them for less than four years, I appreciate each individual’s quirky sense of humor, selflessness, motivation and most of all, their willingness to love.

Until now, I have been very deeply self-absorbed and far too quick to mentally point out imperfections in others that surely mark my existence as well. However, my journey through high school would definitely have been much rougher without the presence of those with whom I choose to surround myself. I am constantly thankful that as my adventure at AHS approaches its end, the people in my life have helped provide me with the growth I need to begin a new one.