That’s it. Just like that, school is closed for the rest of the year. If it were even two months ago, no one could’ve predicted such an occurrence, but now it’s all gone. Prom, spring sports seasons, senior skip day, graduation, the last day of school, and the list goes on.

Senior Taylor Richardson said it best: “It’s definitely heartbreaking to lose the opportunity to make the rest of our senior year memories. Everyone says this is supposed to be one of the best times of our lives, but we just had it taken away from us so fast.”

Indeed, they are some of the best years of our life. The excitement of being young is like no other, and everyone always wants to savor it for as long as they can. To lose possibly the most important two months of your youth hurts even more. The memories that you make in high school are the ones that you will talk about for the rest of your life and now this year’s senior class will never get to have some of those experiences.

“It’s really upsetting that something we’ve been looking forward to since we started school has been taken away, and we can never get it back. We’ve been told our whole lives that this will be the best year of our life, and now we will never get to experience prom or graduation, something most people don’t get taken away from them,” said senior Beth McCreary.

That great sense of accomplishment that you’re supposed to get when the principal hands you your diploma, seniors won’t have that. That feeling of dancing like you own the school with all of your lifelong friends at prom, seniors won’t have that. That overwhelming feeling of excitement you’re supposed to get when putting on your uniform for the last-first time, seniors won’t get that either. From now on, it’s just staring at a computer screen.

“There are some people that I’ll never get to see again or say goodbye to, including teachers. I’m happy we got two trimesters in but it’s sad that we’ll never know what would’ve happened the rest of this school year,” said senior Reid Johnson.

Johnson is right, though. There are people that you go through all of high school with yet never speak a word to. Just the feeling of having them around and knowing that they’re in this thing with you provides an indescribable sense of comfort. Because, believe it not, no one has it figured out yet.

And so life moves on. Some seniors will go straight into the workforce while the rest get shipped all around the country for more school, most without any high school friends to go with them. The good news is that those next couple of years have the chance to trump the excitement of the last four.

Allow this to be a lesson for all the seniors, though. We’re all told, at some point along the way, to cherish these years because they will be over before we know it. I’m sure we can all attest to feeling like it was just yesterday that we took our first step into Bloomington South, not knowing the amazing people we would meet and the amazing memories we would make. So don’t let that happen again. Cherish all of life’s moments equally, and don’t waste the time you have left on being sad or angry because, just like our senior year, you never know when it could end. There are great things ahead for the class of 2020.

“It’s disappointing for me and my classmates to get our senior seasons, prom, and graduation cut short. Those are experiences that would’ve stuck with us for the rest of our lives,” said senior Ethan Hensley.