Dear BASH,

It’s always difficult to go through change. And this is a time of tumultuous change — not just for seniors, who are now leaving behind everything they’ve ever known to pursue great fortune, but for everyone in this time of illness.

Some are cynics. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in the great classic The Great Gatsby, “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” A sentence loaded with pessimistic implications. Fitzgerald believed, at least so far as this quote is to be understood, that no matter how hard we may try to reach our fantastical dreams and goals, we will never win against the current; instead, we are pushed without end back whence we came, doomed to never achieve what our heart desires most. It’s no great stretch to say that this is a great lie.

We are the future. The only way to move is forward, as cliche as it is, and we will absolutely rush the path ahead. We are on the cusp of a momentous societal shift in the way people perceive and approach issues. We have incredible hope and wonderful capacity for compassion. We have the strength to move forward more so than ever before. As individuals, we are remarkable; as a united group, we are phenomena. You will succeed in anything you do; it is not a ceaseless fight, be it education, career, love, or activism.

I would like to thank BASH especially for the last three years. They have been some of the best of my life, partly due to the incredible people I’ve met in the time I’ve been there. Thank you for placing such an importance on the communications field; now, more than ever, reliable and credible news coverage is paramount, even for a high school newspaper. Thank you for allowing us as much freedom as you did, and thank you for always supporting the Cub. We have truly tried our best, and have learned much more than we anticipated from a club.

It has been my great pleasure to serve as Editor-in-Chief of the BASH Cub this past year. We’ve grown immensely both in knowledge and in spirit, and I know it’s in safe hands with Ms. Kraus and next year’s Editor. I can’t wait to see it reach even higher heights in the year to come.
Thank you to every teacher and peer that I’ve ever interacted with. Graduation truly feels like the end of an epoch, which I suspect is a strange feeling I’ll have every now and then for the rest of my time. To live is to change, and in a way teenagers are the most alive as well as the most dead. Our personalities change, but our circumstances do not. This next step, then, is a chance to truly live.

Once again, I have immense gratitude toward everyone at BASH as well as BASH in a general sense. Fitzgerald once said, “You have a place in my heart no one else could ever have.” There will be many epochs carved into my heart, but this is the very first.

Let’s look towards the future.

Thank you,
Jocelyn Lear

“Tell me,” he said, “What is this thing about time? Why is it better to be late than early? People are always saying, we must wait, we must wait. What are they waiting for?”
“Well […] I guess people wait in order to make sure of what they feel.”
“And when you have waited—has it made you sure?”

-James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room