When I was cleaning out my locker at the end of the year, I saw… nothing. I remember the extravagant and lengthy cleanouts of elementary and middle school; my stuff would be a large addition to the garbage cans out in the hallway (always full to the brim by the last day of school), and I would require multiple trips to bring everything home. All the wallpaper, mirrors, white boards, magnets, mini-chandeliers, rugs, and shelves — not to mention all my folders and notebooks for each class.

Now, the end of the school year just doesn’t seem right. Everything fits in my backpack, and all there is are binders and folders from the year, and books that I seemed to never use. No decorations, personality, nor pizzazz — nothing to distinguish my locker as mine, apart from the number on the front: 2501. I don’t even remember my combination anymore — nothing in there is worth locking in.

The one thing that gives me a little closure of the school season is throwing away all of my papers when I get home, the only semblance of that final purge that I was once so familiar with. I take the time to pull out each piece of paper, recycling the ones without my name, and shredding the ones with it.

But with so many classes still doing online work after Covid-19, there aren’t that many papers to even burn in a bonfire or fill up those green bins. All I have to show for my hard work this semester is a small stack of papers, one that looks sad and untriumphant in contrast to what I should consider a victory.

I sighed. Maybe this is it. My last locker cleanout already passed and I didn’t get to appreciate it for what it’s worth. But even if that is true, I still hold on to all of the memories that have left with the end-of-the-year locker evictions, like my squishy collection from sixth grade, or the polka-dot wallpaper from third grade, or the colorful wooden cubbies from all the way back to Kindergarten.

Even though I am not able to have that satisfying locker renovation anymore, it is almost like what I do get rid of is heavier, as I realize that I only have one year left. Only one more year until there are no more lockers to clean out, ever again. This year, I may have taken for granted the significance of the simple locker — and all of the memories that come from a measly metal door with a cubby behind it.