Senior year. With each passing month, every moment becomes more bittersweet, marking the “last” of so many things – your last first day, last football game, last homecoming, last Mini-THON, last prom, last month, and eventually your last day.

As each lesson, assignment and test piles on, you don’t realize the meaning and impact of each second of your time in high school. You make mistakes, learn lessons, make friends, lose some, laugh, cry, smile, but most importantly, you grow. Looking back on my four years of high school hasn’t been easy, as for the first three, I hadn’t accepted growing up at all. Now, as I enter my final month of high school, I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel – something my freshman-year self never could have imagined. Through all the tough, happy, exciting and devastating times, there is always a chance to better yourself, and that’s something that I had to learn from Notre Dame.

One might consider this shocking, as for many people, their high school experience didn’t affect them at all. But for me, high school did make an impact – it shaped who I am in ways I could have never expected. Through many years of support and love from my surroundings and teachers, I have been able to succeed. I was encouraged to love God, fight for what was right, stick up for ones around me, but most importantly be myself. But I wasn’t able to attain this until the beginning of my senior year through an experience that truly changed my life and allowed me to view Notre Dame from a completely different perspective. This experience is called Kairos.

It is a retreat whose purpose is based on love. Even though many people described it as a dream, it often felt like Kairos was being pushed on us every year, without any explanation. But throughout this, not one detail of the experience was shared, because in the end, “the Kairos secret cannot be revealed.”

While many people went out of curiosity, eager to uncover the secrets, I went for a different reason. I felt called to go and encouraged by God, so there was no doubt about me not going. In true Kairos fashion, I can’t share exactly how I was changed, but just know that the growth I experienced was entirely because of what Notre Dame made possible for me.

From this moment on, I was able to view each person and myself from a completely different perspective. I valued my family more, forgave, and accepted people who only wanted the best for me. But most importantly, I viewed Notre Dame as the biggest contributor to my changes. Through their guidance and persistence, I found myself, and truly began to believe in the affirmations I had heard for the last four years.

I was shown to live in the moment and be glad for my presence in my activities. I got accepted into my dream university! I grew closer with friends who have truly made me a better person. I took other people’s feelings into account. I learned how to be OK with being me. I learned how to truly be Jenna Vreeland – and that’s all thanks to Notre Dame.

Cherish where you are now and where you will end up. Participate in every little event that might not seem important later. Go to Prom. Reach out to your friends. Thank the ones around you. Leave an impact. The end of high school isn’t the end of the story – it’s just the beginning of becoming who you’re truly meant to be.