I’ve known almost my whole life that 2020 was my year. 

On my first day of preschool I was given a bright blue t-shirt that said “Class of 2020” across the front. It would take some time to fully understand what that meant, that 2020 was the year I would graduate high school with my friends before moving on from childhood to the next step in life, adulthood.

Over the years, I’ve watched friends and our exchange students cross the stage at Wings Stadium, shake the superintendent’s hand and receive their diploma. I came to view walking across that stage as a rite of passage, a reward to show the world I’d made it after 12-years of hard work and study. 

Commencement is one of life’s big milestones, one you see and hear about all over popular culture — in fiction, music, movies, greeting cards and on Tik Tok. I, like many of my classmates, was both excited and a little scared that the moment — less than three months away when we left school in March — might not live up to my expectations. It turns out we were right.  

Covid-19 hit the United States in full force that night when Governor Whitmer closed schools starting March 16 and then expanded until the end of the 19-20 school year. Big moments in our lives were suddenly taken away from us in a blink of the eye.  

I’ve cried, screamed, and even broke a plate (with my parents’ permission) over the loss of my senior year and the many other stressors this virus has caused all of us. Even now, after KPS announced they may try to hold an in-person graduation ceremony on Aug. 5, it’s hard to stay positive. 

Prom, Grad Bash and other senior activities are all still cancelled. Graduation is up in the air with so many questions left unanswered.

But through it all, the worst thing about it has to be this: I had no idea when I walked out of school on March 12, that I would never walk into Loy Norrix High School again. When I pick up my cap and gown on May 27th, I will be picking it up at a pre-scheduled time in a drive-through line in the school parking lot. 

The Class of 2020 is saying goodbye to childhood without the closure that all the students from the classes before us got. Like every senior, we didn’t know on March 12 to say thank you to our favorite teachers, goodbye to underclassmen we laughed with and so-long to staff members who helped each of us everyday. 

The Class of 2020 walked out of the building on Thursday, March 12 thinking we’d be walking back in through the Loy Norrix Tower at 7 a.m. on Monday morning, convinced we had more time.

This article, one of my last as a writer for Knight Life, is my goodbye to Loy Norrix. I never thought I’d miss it as much as I do right now, and I wish I enjoyed my days at LN more. To the classes of 2021, 2022 and 2023, I have some advice: enjoy your days more.