Wednesday, June 21st, 2023

10:51 PM

I am graduating tomorrow.

I am graduating tomorrow!

I am graduating tomorrow?

I am graduating tomorrow …

I feel like all of these sentences, each marked with their distinct punctuation marks embodies how I feel right now. A mix of excitement, confusion, sadness, nostalgia, and contentment has swirled around my head like a halo for the last week and I know that even when I throw my cap into the air tomorrow morning this halo won’t subside. Instead, I might feel even more feelings! More than I even knew were humanly possible. But if there is one thing senior year has taught me it is that just when you think you have been through it all, and life’s prospects will be predictable and expected, your boat can still rock baby and cruise new seas you never even knew you wanted before.

I am exhausted. This wonderful month of June has been so jammed packed that I haven’t had much time to catch my breath. One milestone after another keeps coming at me and I am having so much fun being so busy but phew I’m looking forward to a break.

I spent all day today decorating my graduation cap and writing cards for my teachers. It feels so good to write this all out, I haven’t had a chance to in a minute. So as I glance to my right, and look at my desk currently covered with my graduation cap, my rubber ducky with a graduation cap taped onto it, and my bright blue gown draped over my chair, I am once again hit with a pang of “wow I did it.” Or rather “Wow I’m doing it!”

I’m so damn proud of myself. I can’t believe how lucky I am to be me at this moment. I love it and want to take up every single second of this joy as I spill over into the next phase of my life.

But first I need to take a shower. Can’t be smelly on the big day! I’ll see you tomorrow. Eeek! 

(It’s really happening isn’t it?) 

Friday, June 23rd, 2023

1:11 PM

Most of the anxious energy floating through my previous diary entry has subsided. I graduated high school yesterday and felt the catharsis of self all throughout the day. From my parents helping me put on my gown, to my best friend Olivia and I laughing at the keynote speakers at graduation, to slurping down pizza slices with my family after the ceremony,  every moment felt celebratory in its own way. I never want this feeling of pride to float away even after the big day.

When I think back to how I entered Beacon, a shy fourteen year old from Marine Park Junior High School, I see her as a shell of myself. I was the only person from my middle school to come to Beacon, had never taken the train before by myself, and didn’t understand that Times Square was something to loathe. Instead, in those first few months of freshman year I took the 15 minute walk from Beacon to the 42nd street station every day (even though I could have saved some time and took the 44th street station) with stars fixed in my eyes. Each afternoon I passed by a bodega stand that sold tourist merch and reminded myself to buy a taxi magnet for my locker. I was a big girl in the city and I enjoyed every moment of it. Yet sometimes I felt a bit behind since I didn’t have enough Brandy Melville in my closet or Air Jordan 1’s. But I made due with my American Eagle flannels and slightly baggy Urban Outfitter jeans that year and tried to embrace my natural hair after too many trips to the Dominican hair salon in middle school.

I used to look back at my freshman year photos and cringe. Why did I put so much gel on my hair? How could I have thought this was a cute picture to post? But now I have a lot of love for that version of Sanai. So much was new at the time — new friends, new teachers, new school environment — and I handled it the best that I could. I never got the chance to buy that taxi magnet though, or close out many aspects of my freshman year because then Covid hit.

The latter half of my freshman year was spent on Zoom school which then carried over into my sophomore year. My school got a new principal that year, Mr. Brady, and it seemed like so many changes were happening around me that I couldn’t keep up. 

In the years between 2020-2021, George Floyd was murdered and I felt in real time the sorrow that painted the Black community as I grappled with my own emotions of anger, confusion, and deep sadness that my country had no problem discarding my people. The January 6th insurrection occurred at the capital, Joe Biden was elected, Amanda Gorman performed “The Hill We Climb”, and so much more. It was a confusing time and for once I saw in my teacher’s eyes that they didn’t know how to help us handle it all. That made me even more frightened.

I struggled a lot with my mental health that year. The isolation from quarantine, and being so separated from my friends made it extremely difficult for me to find comfort in others and instead I got lost inside my own head. Yet somehow I powered through all the despair and did very well in my classes, swiveling in my spinny chair while my geometry teacher yelled at my classmates for joining our Zoom meetings late. Once again, school was never an issue, and instead it gave me something to focus on when I didn’t want to focus on myself.

I found comfort in movies, and watched over 120 movies in 2020 alone. From Little Miss Sunshine to Fight Club I experienced first hand how films could transport you outside of your own reality and into the world of others and I loved every second of it.

My sixteenth birthday arrived towards the end of the school year, just as the world was starting to open back up again in May of 2021. I remember wearing a big birthday cake hat to bring attention to my Zoom box during class. At 8 o’clock in the morning my Spanish 3 teacher at the time, Ms. Marte, gasped when she saw my hat and immediately made everyone unmute so they could sing happy birthday to me. It was sweet and uncomfortable but more so sweet. I felt special and that was more than enough. 

Junior year was when in-person classes resumed and the world started to feel alright again. My friends and I had stayed up all night discussing our outfits and the masks we were wearing to match. What we worried would be a day of awkwardness and re-adjusting to seeing everyone in person quickly melted away as we saw familiar faces, teachers we missed, and the bright orange lockers of the third floor. We had returned to our home away from home — for good. We were so excited that we took selfies inside the cafeteria! A place we never thought we would miss the sweet smell of. Even behind the shadow of our masks, most of all, you can see our smiles, that we were ready to be kids again in the seven stories of Hell's Kitchen we could call our own. 

The rest of junior year was filled with studying for AP Bio exams, morning runs to Vanilla Gorilla for hot chocolate and banana chocolate chip muffins, and deeply philosophical conversations about capitalism and grocery stores in my English class. I grew unbelievably close with so many of my friends that year as we bonded over the trials and triumphs of high school, leaning one one another and hugging in front of our lockers when things got tough.

My parents were also my rocks that year as I dove into the depths of SAT tutoring, an era in my life I needed to go through at the time but would never relive over again. With my SAT tutor, Dr. Hall, I practiced algebraic equations and syntax problems twice a week for two hours at a time even after my long days at school. Despite my endless studying, the SAT and I never connected in the way that I wanted us to — that golden 1600 seemed endlessly out of reach. Test after test I kept getting scores that I felt weren’t good enough and grew so disappointed in myself. Until Dr. Hall helped me realize that one test does not define you. And look at me now! Heading to Brown without even submitting my SAT scores. I wish I could go give that Sanai a hug right now. Archaic tests mean so little in the long run, but at least I know now how to use a comma correctly (#fanboy). 

Thursday, June 29th, 2023

1:45 PM

Senior year, and now we are here. It has been a blitz of joy finding myself at the end of my high school journey. I am so content and fulfilled with everything I have accomplished that I don’t even need to list it all but I will anyways to gloat a bit:

• I slayed Pre-Calculus as a senior thanks to Mr. Schillachi

• I was a finalist for the New York City Youth Poet Laureate award and wrote some of the best poems I have ever written with a community of other amazing teenage writers

• I got into my dream school

• I finally got an A in one of Ms. Diran’s classes

• I continued taking Spanish as a senior even though Spanish has never comes easily to me, and stuck through until the very end

• I successfully survived one of Mr. Moscow’s classes and had surprisingly so much fun learning about the economy 

• I published my second print edition of my school’s newspaper, The Beacon Beat

• I traveled to a foreign country without my parents and came back home in one piece

• I wrote, directed, and acted in my own play for theater class

• I graduated high school!!!

I am forgetting so many other things but don’t worry I will keep adding to this list. In many ways I see this essay as developing one. Throughout the rest of the summer I will keep coming back to this piece to edit and expand on my final thoughts on high school before I head to Brown on August 25th. We need more living, breathing, pieces of work, and I see this essay as just that. 

The end of senior year was a flurry of love, joy, and support from my friends. I turned eighteen, went to prom with my friend group (and looked amazing doing so), had a graduation party where I was surrounded by a flurry of love from my friends and family, rented a house in the Poconos with my best friends  as a graduation treat, graduated, and picked up my diploma in style. This time in my life is so unique to this moment, that no other moment in my life will ever be exactly like it. And I have cherished every moment of it. 

On my last day of school where all the seniors had to come to Beacon one last time to pick up their diplomas, I drove into school one last time with my dad. He dropped me off at 7:30, our normal time, and even though I didn’t have to be at school until 12, I made my way over to my favorite café, Vanilla Gorilla, to pass the time. In Vanilla Gorilla I wrote over fifteen cards to teachers and staff at Beacon who have made my last four years worthwhile. My freshman year gym teacher, Mr. Sarci, my principal, Mr. Brady, the staff worker in the main office who always helped me when my locker was jammed, Luis, my guidance counselor who helped me speak up to Ms. Diran when I was struggling in class, Ms. Shriki, and many more. But my favorite cards I wrote were for the deli owner, pizza shop owner, and Vanilla Gorilla employees around Beacon that made my last four years memorable with good eats and even better conversations.

I walked into my treasured deli, Healthy Market, and said hello to the cashier, Chrissy, and the ock, Messelo, creator of my beloved turkey, cheese, lettuce, and mayo on a roll sandwiches, for the last time. 

“Today is my last day of school!,” I exclaimed as I walked to the counter.

“Oh really?” Chrissy exclaimed. “You’re done with high school!” I smiled, shaking my head, not believing this was my last deli run before school. I grabbed a lemonade, said hi to Messelo (I didn’t even need to say my order because he has memorized it by now), and took it all in for the last time. The rainbow selection of potato chips, wide array of lemonades and seltzers in the refrigerator, and the familiar bustle behind the deli counter that always made me smile. 

I handed Chrissy and Messelo their cards and asked if we could take a photo together. They were both so happy to do so, and embraced me in a large hug.

“We wish you the best of luck in college!”

I held back tears and said, “I will miss you!” and made my way out the doors for the last time. 

Then as raindrops began falling in the sky I started to sob.

I didn’t even cry at graduation and here I was crying over my last deli run as Beacon student! 

Can anything describe the New York City high school experience better than that? 

I think not.

I will forever miss you Beacon and am so thankful for the teachers who gave me confidence, the friends along the way, and the person I have become with all that has erupted in the world sitting here tall and strong as I write this today. 

Love,

Sanai