As a child growing up, I always heard the phrase “you’ll always find your way back home.” In fact, there ended up being a Hannah Montana song titled that, and I listened to it all the time. Unfortunately, I never felt like it applied to me.

A lot of you that are reading this already know about my situation. I live with my grandparents because my parents were unfit to care for me, which sucks but it’s fine. Not everyone is meant to live life the “normal” way. However, it’s hard to feel like you belong somewhere when the one place you’re supposed to be isn’t fit for you and the people who are supposed to care the most hardly care at all.

My circumstances always made me the black sheep of all of the other kids. I ate lunch with my elementary school teachers or school nurses for six years. Sat next to coaches on the trips to track meets for two years. Then, I finally meandered into C107 here at West campus freshman year, where I sat as close as possible to the teacher’s desk in 21st Century Journalism.

I almost dropped that class because I was overwhelmed by the other students, but I decided to stay because I didn’t want to talk to the counselors and I thought the teacher, Kristy Nyp, was pretty rad. Anyway, staying in that introductory journalism class was the best decision I’ve ever made. I didn’t know it just yet, but I had finally found a home.

By the end of that first semester, I knew the journalism room was where I was going to spend the rest of my high school career. I transferred into the yearbook class second semester, set some goals for what I wanted out of my time here, and the rest is history.

I didn’t mind that I was doing a ton of work for people that didn’t appreciate it as much as I wanted them to, because I knew that I was meant to do it and that eventually I’d get students and administration to care. I didn’t mind because I had found a passion and a home.

Journalism is, without a doubt, the reason I’m still alive right now. If I hadn’t gotten a text at midnight from one of the yearbook editors last year asking me a question about a story, I would have followed through on a suicide attempt. If I hadn’t had the constant responsibility of deadlines weighing down on me, or a teacher that showed me people care about me, I wouldn’t have known that I had something to live for. This room gave me something to immerse myself in to distract from the pain I was experiencing. It gave me something to fight for day after day.  

It’s important to find somewhere that you belong because if you don’t, you have nowhere to come back to. You have no place to go when everything else crashes down. You have nothing to live for. Journalism has done that for me, and I hope all of you can find something like that as well.

It’s been an honor to write all of your stories for the last four years and I can’t express how much gratitude I have for you guys. I hope you guys have enjoyed The Mentor this year. This is me signing off for the final time as your Editor-in-Chief.

With love,

Angie Moss