2010 Reflections: Thank You, Door County

Of all the events that have made 2010 a year to remember, it is one that happens every year, high school graduation, that looms in my mind. The reason: this year’s graduation was mine.

After a memorable year in which our Gibraltar High School senior class led record-setting teams in football, soccer, basketball, and baseball, and raised Gibraltar’s academic and artistic standards even higher, we counted down the days until we would leave high school on a high note. For our class, like so many others, the place where we grew up was the place we couldn’t wait to leave.

Which is why I wasn’t surprised much to hear my classmates longing to come home this fall, and to feel that same longing myself. After a few months of dorm life, cafeteria food, and a college-level workload, there’s something indescribably nice about seeing old teachers and friends, and sleeping in your own bed. And sometimes, as the saying goes, you don’t know how good something is until it’s gone.

It’s a theme that seems to have been prevalent throughout the last year, whether in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill or the latest massive turnover in Congress. And I’m sure that our class isn’t an exception in our relief at being home from college for the first time.

But I can hope that our appreciation for our hometown will last. As our teacher Lauren Bremer told us six months ago at graduation, “there is something absolutely incredible about the relationships that you share, maybe not because you’re all so close, but because you watched each other grow up, you’ve watched each other change. You’ve let each other change. And that’s amazing. The collective memories that you have are so vast and so deep, and you will go nowhere on earth like home, where the people know you and understand you so well and love you as much as we all do.”

It is those memories, and the people we share it with, that ultimately make this place so special to all of us. After one semester of college, it’s good to be home. And I know that, after my next graduation, it will be hard not to come back.