By Tim DeLouchrey
Sports Editor  

When I was younger, my cousin told me that high school drags on while you’re there, but once it’s over, you’ll feel like it went by at light speed. That never made sense to me until now.

There is a very real sensation of excitement, nostalgia, and just about every emotion there is that goes through your stomach once you realize that it is over.

Over as is done, never happening again, the end.

They say hindsight is 20/20, and looking back, just about everything important that happened in my high school experience was the result of an exponentially unimportant influence.
For starters, let’s talk about how I joined the Ghostwriter. When schedule sign ups for sophomore year came around, I had just watched Marley & Me, where Owen Wilson stars as a journalist. As a result, I chose to take Journalism I.

When I got into the classroom on the first day, Ms. Fonden informed us how excited she was to see we all wanted to write for the school paper. The what? We had a school paper? Yes, we do. You should keep reading it.

Fast forward three years later and that romantic comedy featuring Wilson and Clyde (that’s the dog’s real name) had essentially opened up a whole new world to me that I now intend to pursue a career in. Thanks, Clyde.

Rewind to freshman year when I had three goals in mind: don’t be concerned about trying to fit in, be concerned about fitting in, and buy as many sherbets as I can at lunch.

It was at cross-country practice a week before school even technically started that those all came into play – well, except the third one.

On the first day, I went through the opening stretches terrified of the towering upperclassmen until we went on our run, where I then was not only scared, but also exhausted.

I didn’t finish the first run I went on. Or the second. Or the third. You get the point.

Eventually running got a bit less extremely difficult (I wouldn’t use the word easier) and a friend and I were quoting Step Brothers one day when a senior jumped in on the conversation.

We both held our breath in fear for longer than you should while running, but eventually relaxed and actually felt comfortable talking to him. He talked to us like we were two normal people and made me feel like I fit in.

Goals one and two were now irrelevant. Who would’ve thought Step Brothers would impact my social life?

There are countless moments that change our lives and looking back, most of them came at times we would never have expected. Now that I’m looking back on these moments, as I hope you will all do with the moments that changed your lives, I strive to be the person that changes someone else’s life for the better.

As we move forward, we will encounter change again and again whether it’s for better, for worse, or for different.

Though acing your SATs, or planning the perfect summer may seem important, it really is the seemingly insignificant, wildcard moments and people – or dogs like Clyde – that can make just as much of an impact.

Farewell and thank you Class of 2015.