North High — It didn’t start with thunder or light. It started quietly. A ninth-grade fog, dense with uncertainty. The halls too bright, the friendships too new. I walked in with questions clinging to me like dew — small, silent and impossible to shake.

No umbrella could’ve prepared me for what followed.

Freshman Year: Fog

A slow, stubborn drizzle. I was rain-soaked in self-consciousness, filled with the desire to be liked and the fear of being too much. I moved carefully, unsure of what was solid ground. I clung to structure — schedules, syllabi, rules. I said less than I wanted to. I edited myself more than I ever edited a sentence. I was observing, trying to understand the temperature of the room before stepping fully into it.

But somewhere in that quiet, clarity began to form. A paper I was proud of. A teacher who saw me. A friend who stayed. The clouds didn’t part, but I learned to walk in the rain.

Sophomore Year: Wind

Everything started to shift. I changed. My friendships changed. I stopped trying to disappear. I learned how to assert myself — not loudly, but firmly.

There were good days. There were days I wish I could edit out. But I stopped treating uncertainty as weakness. I let go of the need to control every moment and instead leaned into the movement.

Junior Year: Dry Season

Dry. Tired. Cracked at the edges. Everyone warned me about junior year. No one warned me about the isolation. I buried myself in deadlines, in “leadership,” in late nights that blurred into mornings. I stretched myself thin, and then thinner. Burnout didn’t arrive in flames — it arrived as absence.

But even in the most depleted moments, I found things that grounded me: laughter that didn’t need explanation, words that made people feel seen. I reminded myself that exhaustion isn’t weakness — it’s just a sign that you’re pushing toward something that matters. The sky didn’t stay open, but it opened just enough to remind me it could.

Senior Year: Shift

Senior year was everything at once: golden-hour sunsets and gut-punch tornadoes. The joy of “lasts” tangled with the ache of “nevers.” Promises and pressure and premature nostalgia. I watched the class around me bloom, break and rebuild — including myself.

There was warmth: the college acceptances I didn’t think would come. The conversations that lingered. The moments that didn’t need to be photographed to be remembered.

And there was loss: unspoken goodbyes, choices I wish I could rewrite. But I carried them all — not perfectly, but better. I found a voice. I stopped waiting for permission. I let go of the versions of myself I’d outgrown, and I tried to thank them on the way out.

Five-Day Forecast:

Monday — It’s okay to walk alone in the hallway. The people who matter will catch up.
Tuesday — Don’t conflate invisibility with invincibility. Speak.

Wednesday — Breathe. No single decision defines you.

Thursday — Learn how to say “no.” It’s a full sentence.
Friday — Save everything. Photos. Notes. Crumpled drawings. You’ll need them on stormy days.

My Final Climate Report

I used to think success was about arriving — a number, a title, a perfect piece of writing. But it’s not. It’s becoming. Slowly, and then all at once. Through revision. Through discomfort. Through the days that feel ordinary until they don’t.

I’m not the same girl who walked in four years ago, afraid to ask for directions. I’m not even the same person I was a year ago. I’ve been shaped by weather — by wind, by stillness, by unexpected sun. I’ve been struck by lightning and lived to tell the story.

And now, as I stand in the eye of this slow, spiraling goodbye, I can only say: Thank you for the storm. Because I finally understand — I wasn’t just surviving the weather.

I was becoming it.