While sitting down to write this, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to approach this the way Taylor Swift sat down and wrote “Wildest Dreams” with her soft delicate hands, or if I wanted to approach it the way Nicki Minaj wrote her 2015 VMA acceptance speech where she roasted everyone. So I think I am going to make it a little bit of both.

You might know me as the girl that shows up to school 25 minutes late every day, or as the girl that runs a mildly successful Taylor Swift blog, or you may have been scrolling down a humor Instagram account and saw a beautiful Indian woman in squirrel pajamas and thought to yourself “wait is that my school?” Yes that is me. I am the meme that goes to your school. Anyways, I guess I am supposed to write a farewell column or something to symbolize leaving the journalism staff.

It is so weird to me to think about how much different my life is now compared to my freshman year. World-class 21st century philosopher Taylor Swift once said, “I know nothing now compared to what I will know someday.” I think about how different my life is now and how different it probably will be in the next four years. So many things have changed since freshman year. My iPhone doesn’t die within an hour, One Direction only has four members, I am six inches taller and I can drive. If you were to tell me as a freshman that by graduation I would be invited to Taylor Swift’s house and be hit with a golf club by her, I would have laughed in your face. But look where I am now.

It is honestly amazing how much life can change in four years. Freshman Maya would show up to school 15 minutes early every day; now look at me. I haven’t been early to school since March of sophomore year. Although the person who entered MHS in 2012 is a different person than the one exiting this week, all of the things in between have shaped me into a person I have learned to become proud of. One of my favorite characteristics about myself is that I am independent. Some of the best advice I have ever received was that people can say what they want about you, but you can be independent and choose to take it in or block it out. Because ultimately you are what you believe you are, and not the opinion of someone who doesn’t know you.

I remember sophomore year a kid that literally looked like a stalk of asparagus told me I would be prettier if I didn’t have circles under my eyes. If someone were to say that to me now, I probably would have yelled at them and told them how they resemble a mediocre-tasting vegetable that can genetically affect someone’s urine. But sophomore Maya was weak. I spent so much time worrying about it and I let it affect my confidence.

I remember one day I finally realized that there are things that we just can’t change. I feel like everyone spends so much time worrying about things we hate about ourselves, but most of the time, they’re things we can’t control. It may have taken me 18 years to figure it out, but once I stopped hating the things that I didn’t like about myself, my life became much more beautiful. Moral of the story is don’t let a creepy sophomore guy that weighs like 98 pounds and probably owns a meninist shirt, but also One Direction’s entire discography, tell you how you should feel.

There are lots of things I want to be remembered for. Maybe I’m the girl you will tell your kids about when they ask you who Taylor Swift is or maybe I’m the person who threw bread sticks onto the dance floor at SubDeb. But whatever I may be to you, I hope that I have made you laugh at some point over the past four years.

If you want to see if I become a successful marketing manager living in a fabulous apartment overlooking a city, or fail out of college my first semester because I couldn’t wake up to my alarm, then follow me on Twitter @mayaminocha13. Sorry I had to get that last bit of self promo in before graduation.