I lost my first year of high school to Zoom in 2020. Not just my first day, or first week, but the entire first year. This jarring start to a new phase of life set a pace that marked high school milestones strangely.

Now, with graduation approaching, I look back on those milestones—the ups and downs of four pivotal years—and reflect. What can I remember? What should I remember? What will I forget?

This is where the yearbook comes into play.

Yearbooks allow us to slow down and take a look back at the previous year. It goes by so fast when you’re in it: a blur of classes, finals, presentations, clubs. But with a yearbook in my hands, I can see the last of everything with my friends. Yearbooks capture the random science lessons we didn’t know we would miss, the teacher who taught us one year and was forgotten about the next, the friends known only as hallway acquaintances, the people we never thought we would connect with but will definitely keep in touch with beyond this phase of life. Even now, I page through my middle and elementary school yearbooks, and I’m instantly transported back to my day-to-day life.

There is beauty in the curation of a yearbook, too.

For as long as I’ve been alive, we’ve had the ability to take a picture and save it digitally—which means our pockets are filled with disorganized fragments of memories dating back years and years. There is something special about having a designated space for specific photos that come together to tell a story, captured in a tangible book that forces us to flip the page and feel the weight of the memories.

Besides, when have we ever been able to hold time in our hands?

When I was younger, I was afraid of the idea that memories were happening all around me—and that forgetting them would feel like losing a piece of myself. That’s when I discovered the power of journaling to hold my memories. Writing would ensure that I could look back on the different versions of myself, and what I experienced: from the mundane things, like what I ate for breakfast on Thursday before school (toast and scrambled eggs with cheese), to my first crush in elementary school (and the red collared shirt he wore on the first day we talked).

Yearbooks, too, help capture how we change—which is why they are especially important for teenagers, who are too young to play with the kids but not old enough to fraternize with the adults.

They are how we remember this transitory phase, and the passage into adulthood—our “coming of age.”

During my freshman year, I joined the yearbook staff. We were forced to figure out how to bring people together digitally in a sea of blacked-out, camera-off Zoom screens. Which also meant we got to know our classmates differently. We saw pictures of their pets, got selfies taken in their rooms, and discovered who’s most likely to fall asleep with their camera on. Our small but mighty yearbook team did it all. We often had to get creative. Instead of prom, we spotlighted pets, instead of field trips, we showcased sidewalk chalk art, and instead of homecoming, we featured our actual homes.

So, while we didn’t have the usual options that marked the high school experience, we got to learn more about each other—like a shared love for the same band through posters hanging on our bedroom walls, meeting classmates’ siblings, and finding out that your dog and a classmate’s cat have the same name.

Yearbooks are a shared experience. Although we experience the same year, the same classes, and the same people, a yearbook is not catered to one person’s version of a story; it’s made up of pieces of everyone’s journey. That’s one reason why that COVID year’s book felt particularly special. The pandemic put the value of people and shared moments into perspective for me. And it’s the people I’ll remember the most from my time in high school.

My favorite part of the yearbook process is exchanging signatures, and as a graduating senior there’s more weight to it this time around. I know I’m leaving a lasting message or a last message, a final impression of the past year with my peers. I like to read the personalized versions of what people remember about our shared experiences. What did they remember about me? What memories did we share that didn’t cross my mind? As much as we walk together through high school, every day is different for each person.

Looking back is bittersweet. When it’s time to receive my yearbook this year and the smudged ink signatures are in place, I will be able to turn the pages and hold on to the memories I was lucky enough to have. To look back on the past, not think about the future, and extend the present.