Andronese Lemons, for one, understood the assignment of this series. Andronese came to our photo shoot ready to put her best self forward and shine her brightest, and so she did. Dressed in her white basketball uniform, Andronese beams as she holds a basketball in front of a school trophy case – a case Andronese has worked to fill each year as a core member of the Ballou Varsity Basketball team for the previous three years. But this most challenging of years, Andronese’s uniform, so crisp and so fresh, had sadly gone unworn when for the first time, Andronese, like so many seniors living through this pandemic, was unable to finish the story of her time in high school as she had originally set out to write it.

Gone was the chance to defend the title she had helped Ballou win her junior year; gone were the chances to roam the beautiful, sun filled hallways of her high school; gone was all the camaraderie, activity and connection, suddenly and unceremoniously replaced with Netflix and the like, as we all tried to just hang on. And so Andronese has had to not only survive the challenges and difficulties of life and the pandemic in general and high school in particular, but Andronese had to conceive of a whole new story for herself. How would this year try to define her, and how would she try to define herself?

And so, as she worked to move the many challenges and difficulties of the past year into her rear view mirror, Andronese wanted to return to Ballou and to be seen and celebrated in these very hallways. Andronese wanted to wear her basketball uniform and pose like the student athlete she is, despite this year. Andronese wanted to be smiling and beautiful and self-assured in this space, despite being kept away for a year. Andronese wanted to reclaim this space and this story as her own, and so she did.

Andronese says she would tell her younger self, “You are brave. You are strong. You are unique.” Andronese knows too well that life can be hard and so she tells herself, “but you don’t give up no matter what.” We know and hope that this determination to shine, to continually try to invest in and believe in herself, even in the face of obstacles and difficulties will be like a well Andronese can draw from as she takes her next steps in the world. Andronese told us that the most beautiful story she could tell herself about her own life was “graduation and going to college.” Let’s give Andronese her applause and flowers as she continues to write the story of her life where she is the main character, not free from the unexpected nor strife, but able to meet it and to keep herself in the writer’s seat.