By Jocelyn Tolpin ’17, Editor-in-Chief

Part I: Years 1-9

“New York Academy?”

My mom’s head swiveled around from the passenger seat as she interrupted my babbling monologue. “Honey, it’s Newark Academy.”

I was embarrassed. My sister had been at this school for five years and now, on the way to her graduation, I had finally learned its name.

I was seven years old at the time, which means that I had been attending NA events since the age of two.

The ceremony was really nice. I wore a pink dress with white polka dots and I consumed my fill of leaf-shaped cookies and powdered pink lemonade. I decided I really liked the school.

By the time I turned 8, that affection morphed into an infatuation. The brick buildings and checkered rainbow carpets of my second grade lacked notability, their sole purpose was to act as an environment for my newest, and to that day, most prominent fantasy: only three more years until I can apply to NA.

I know.

Anyway, eventually that day came, when I sent in that sealed application replete with stories of how I liked to cook my parents dinner, and how, on a whim, I entered an art competition on Accuweather (application padding) and won (I was the only entrant).

*SPOILER ALERT* I got in.

Part II: Years 9-12

I still remember the very first day of sixth grade. I had science, math, chorus, lunch, French, and Creative Theater. I wore a purple dress. I had three pimples that I had itched so often that they had scabbed, one on either cheek and one on my chin.

I went through the regular trials of middle school: trying to figure out who my friends were, wishing I looked or acted differently, deciphering the difference between infatuation and love, dreaming about that eighth-grade semi-formal, reminiscing about how quickly time has passed through a school-mandated Weebly self-reflection.

It was during my eighth grade year that Mykee Fowlin–a poet, performer, and psychologist, brought to us by the Feinberg grant–came to speak to us. He broke down our boundaries, he pushed us to confront our own vulnerabilities, and even more challenging, he taught us to accept others’. It was after that day that I felt a dramatic cultural shift in the school. I saw four girls come out on stage in front of me and a school stand up and applaud their braveness. I saw people who had never before shared a conversation anonymously complimenting each other on a public forum. Newark Academy had, in the course of three years, morphed from a fantasy, to a reality, to a space for personal growth.

And with that I entered high school.

Part III: Years 12-15

In retrospect, I did not do horribly enough on my first assessment of high school that my wave of disappointment and existentialist questioning was justified, but for my standards for the time, I might as well have failed. I remember the tumults of self-doubt so clearly; I was overwhelmed by the notion that maybe I’m not the student that I thought I was.

A few days later, my sister was driving home from the back to school barbecue. My knees and arms were coated with chocolate residue, my hair had clumped together into dreadlocks, but there was this compelling presence of hope, slightly palpitating my heart. I knew I’d be okay.

Each year of high school had its own tone but each fostered this exciting, chaotic feeling of growing up.

I remember turning 15 and thinking this is how old True Jackson* was when she became a VP and then fretting about the fact that my body looked nothing like True Jackson’s. I remember turning 16 and thinking that the Little Mermaid really had no idea what she was doing and 16 is far too young to be married. By the time I turned 17, I stopped comparing myself to Disney characters and instead, focused on that first glorious taste of independence in the form of the most anticipated piece of plastic that I would ever earn, my driver’s license. At 18 I realized that I was supposed to be older than all of the cast of seasons 1-3 Glee (Fox is a step up from Disney?), and that I was now (if not in any other aspect) legally an adult.

Part IV: Year 16

Senior year was nothing if not dynamic. Each month had the potential to either be hellish or heavenly or intrinsically mediocre, and though this may be true for any other year, I’ve never experienced it to the same extent. Through the college process, through identity crises, through innumerable mental health days—but also through strengthening friendships, growing nostalgia, and the loss of the shroud of mystery that used to characterize my future—senior year at NA has been the most self-reflective and self-revealing adventure that I’ve ever experienced.

During those last four years of NA, that illustrious, elusive destination of my early childhood dreams became, simply, a high school. But that does not at all decrease its magnitude of importance. I, and every Odyssey Online article you guiltily read, say that you will always treasure the transformation that you undergo here, and I’m eternally grateful to my seven-year-old self for indulging in all those leaf-shaped cookies that convinced me that this was a good place to be. I know that I am who I am is because I am here.

Now it’s April. Checkout is imminent, graduation is a hop and a skip away, and college is around the corner. I only have a few weeks left being a part of NA.

Surreal.

*True Jackson is the title character of Nickelodeon show True Jackson VP