I used the same binder throughout all of high school. The binder was small, had colorful folders in it and lots of empty pages when I first had it.

Throughout freshman year, it started to fill up with my notes and worksheets from my seven classes. The red folder had my history notes, the blue had math, and so on. However, the binder was also filled with doodles and little notes about what I was thinking at the exact moment. A doodle of a butterfly would be in between my Spanish verb conjunction homework and a little note that said, “I want to go to Mexico.” Little bursts of randomness mixed with the seriousness of school and the fun of the doodles all encompassed into one binder.

After each school year, I would reuse the same binder. I would take all my notes and worksheets from the binder and put them in a box labeled “Sarah’s High School Notes 2017-2021.” As the school years went on the box got fuller; every note I wrote and worksheet I filled out throughout four years was in a box.

This binder and box is exactly what I describe as my high school experience. The binder started out as an empty notebook, ready to be filled with countless marks, just like high school: one place that is filled with schoolwork, my academics, doodles, the memories I made, and random thoughts I wrote down, the events that shaped me. Although the lid of the box is now closed and taped up, it will forever remain as my high school experience.