I’ve lived in San Dimas for the past 9 years but it honestly only started feeling like a hometown this year. Which is unfortunate but quite poetic considering I’ll be leaving it for college soon.  I never expected to be sad about leaving San Dimas or our school because I never expected to love it this much. It turns out homes sometimes only become homes when you’re leaving them.  Suddenly the four years I’ve had here feel way too short and almost like they happened within a few months. 

But, it was four years. And in those years, there were so many moments of joy, sorrow, and unforeseeable change.  Time moves so fast that it can be hard to remember it and those moments often get lost.  But I’ve learned that the best way to stop time and see it clearly in a world that never stops moving is through telling stories.  Looking back through all the stories of The Saint Scroll throughout the years is like combing my fingers through the past. Through the articles I’ve written, I can catch a glimpse of all the different versions of myself that I’ve lived through high school.

All my life, I’ve been shy.  Talking to people wasn’t something simple for me the way it is for most people.  In 8th grade, I had gotten out of my shell but then the pandemic hit and I retreated back into myself.  When I first joined journalism in my freshman year, I was timid and unconfident. I decided to join the journalism class because I’ve always loved writing.  But writing is only half the equation in journalism and having to interview people, especially while stuck at home, was a struggle for me.  When I reread the first story I ever wrote,  “Student’s Mental Health in Quarantine,” I can remember it like it was yesterday.  I frantically wrote the article the night before it was due and I didn’t expect it to be very good. But it was, and I saw something in myself that I never had seen before.  Journalism gave me an opportunity to turn my lifelong love of writing – something solitary, mostly consisting of stories and poems I hid in my desk drawer – into something I could share with the rest of the world.

But I still struggled with the social aspect and procrastinating my interviews, so I planned not to continue journalism my sophomore year.  I was once again leaving an opportunity behind out of fear.  I already had my schedule submitted when Mrs. Lehrmann emailed me asking me to give journalism another chance.  She believed in me in a way I had never believed in myself. I switched my schedule and spent another year writing for the Saint Scroll.  In my sophomore year, I had to get used to conducting interviews in person, which made me nervous, but it pushed me to blossom.  I realized that stepping out of my comfort zone was the price to pay for covering meaningful stories, and it was worth it.  That year I covered a Pro-Choice protest on campus that was in response to news that the Supreme Court planned to overturn Roe vs Wade.  Looking back, I am so grateful that I got to be a part of momentous events as a writer.  The Saint Scroll gave me a voice that I had waited so long to find.

This year – my third year writing for the Saint Scroll –I decided to run for an editor position.  If someone had told me in my freshman year that I’d become an editor, I never would have believed them. I chose to be editor of the community section. Community wasn’t something I’d expected to find in San Dimas; it was something I often shied away from as an introvert. But I did find it and I feel it so deeply now that leaving San Dimas feels like leaving a part of myself behind. I see community in our rallies and our events, but also in the quiet moments that you only notice if you really pay attention.  There’s community in the unshakeable bonds between friends, between students and teachers, between teammates.  Community is the section of the Saint Scroll that encompasses the most as it includes not only our school but the town outside it.  All of us have a place here and something incredible to share. Writing stories and reading them has given me a glimpse into another world that I was blind to before.  Strangers became someone important, even if the only time I talked to them was to interview them for an article.  Once you see something unique in someone, you don’t unsee it.

The Saint Scroll has changed and improved so much since I first joined in 2020.  The bulletin board, the social media posts, the editor for each section –it’s all come together to create a better Saint Scroll.  The Saint Scroll that I’m writing for right now is different than it was last year and it will be different in a year too. I have no doubt it only gets better from here.  The Saint Scroll is a place where students from all walks of life come together to create something bigger than us.  Every writer leaves behind a legacy in their stories that time can’t erase.  

I wish I had just a little more time. I think after I leave, my heart will skip a beat every time I see our football field from the freeway or the colors blue and gold.  I’ll never forget my time here at The Saint Scroll because it helped give me something worth missing.  And no matter where the future takes me, I know all I have to do is open my computer and read a Saint Scroll article to go home.