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I kind of already said my goodbye on the campus ministry instagram account. I started it as a way to connect with the kids at the school, and I figured after the announcement yesterday that they could use a couple words. I won’t ever truly be able to say goodbye to Manogue. I have family history there, and piece of my heart will always be in the school. I just hope I left my own silent mark on the school. I wasn’t a popular kid. I didn’t win any school elections or participate in any rallies. I was never an athlete in the popular sports. I was just in the background much of the time with my only real visible mark being altar serving which definitely doesn’t make you popular. I did what I could in the best way I knew how through campus ministry. I wanted to help impact people the way the retreats impacted me. Even though I will never know if I left my silent mark, I like to think I did. That was always going to be my goodbye. I just wish I could’ve had a little longer to do more, but my goodbye to the school was to try and leave it in some way better than when I had come to it. I will never know for sure if I was successful or not, but one can hope can’t he? My only wish is one day we can all get together and wish each other personal face to face goodbyes. I want to graduate next to my peers, not in my house. I want to walk across the stage. I want to throw my cap. I want to hug all the teachers that truly got me through the dark place in my life. I want to hug my best friends. Most of all, I want my grandpa to see me graduate. During 8th grade the doctors thought he had near end stage lung cancer. He refused treatment because he didn’t want to be bedridden for the rest of his life. However, he did say he wanted to live to 80 because he would turn 80 in 2020, and that would mean he got to see me graduate. I prayed and prayed and prayed, and I think God gave me a miracle. He is still around and doing well as ever. We haven’t gotten it checked, but I don’t think his tumors are even there anymore. Both him and God willed that he live long enough to see me graduate, and more than anything I want that to be true. I want to say goodbye to the school that made me with the person that put a golf club in my hand and pushed me down this path. I want that more than anything as my final farewell to the school.

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I learned during high school how resilient I am. Freshman year, I went from not being able to make the roster to begin the state hero by the end of the year. I hit the two lowest points I’ve ever been in in the same year and managed to come back. I had to juggle a lot while maintaining my grades which I’m very proud of. I just learned that I have more in me than I ever thought I did.

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Honestly, something that I finally got to experience this last half year mainly was bonding with my teachers. I always had a bond with Galli, but I was able to have meaningful and fun conversations with all my teachers this year. I had so much fun getting to talk to my teachers like they were real people and have them treat me the same back. I will miss that greatly. I made such good bonds with my teachers this year that it will be hard to be taught by anyone else. I will also miss my best friends. I met all my best friends at Manogue, and it won’t be the same not getting to walk with them in the halls everyday and have lunch with them and just relax in the midst of school craziness. I’m also going to miss the retreats so so so much. I will be back definitely as an alumni leader, but being there and experiencing it firsthand definitely changed my life. Quite honestly, it may have saved it. That impact it made is something I will cherish forever.

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There’s a lot of things I could include in this. I still remember my first day like it was yesterday. I walked in with music blaring in the halls, and the first face I see is Father Richard greeting me in the hall... followed promptly by my parents chasing me down to give me the lunchbox I’d left in the car (awkwardddd😬). I remember my first homecoming where I brought the girl I’d been crushing on for a couple years. I remember my horrific English class that year. I remember dying in cross country, and I finally remember meeting Mr. Galli which would later prove to be very important. I also remember being the hero at state that year in golf for our team. Since then I have had relationships and gotten my heart broken. I have been driven down to some dark places. I remember many a test which I had to take running on 3 hours of sleep or less because I just couldn’t find rest. I also remember the countless days of sitting in Galli’s old office because it felt like the only place I could go. I had some of my worst days, but some of my very best days at Manogue. I will never forget it.

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Another door I was faced with was the decision of whether or not to date Cami. There was definitely a door there as we had both shown interest and were basically already joined at the hip. The trouble was discerning how good of a decision it actually was. I had just gotten out of a nasty break up and it messed me up for awhile. I knew that there was good, but if it ended as badly as the last one, it would have been extremely hard to recover. Having someone to support me like that in a time where my mental health was not amazing was the best thing I could have done, so I thought it was wise. However, some would say the wise choice would have been to learn how to be happy on your own. Knowing what I know about my faith, I disagreed because we were made as social creatures that thrived in intimacy and love, and I wanted to get into that state if I had a good viable opportunity, and Cami was. Lastly, I wanted it more than anything. I realized the good would have been worth much more than the bad, and we both went for it.

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Another door I had for me was one my best friend tried to convince me of. She went to Manogue but left about halfway through her sophomore year because she was just burned out and unhappy. She noticed I was feeling many of the same things, so she tried to convince me of going to Galena with her. It seemed ridiculous as I had already started the semester, but was making good points. It was the people at Manogue that were draining me of my spirit. It breaks my heart to see where the majority of kids are trending, and someone who just wants to be friends with people, to see them treat me and other people in such a nasty way was breaking my spirit, and I fell into depression. That door seemed good and it seemed viable, but I felt a responsibility to the school. I didn’t think leaving it would be the way. The door seemed more like a way out and not a way forward. I decided to not consider it because I wasn’t done with Manogue yet. Since then I’ve led two retreats and have just tried to be as friendly as I can be in the hopes it will be more contagious than the negativity.

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One discernment I had to make which should not have been one at all was whether or not I should do a talk at Kairos. In hindsight, God was calling me to it so there was no door, but I thought there was. Fear made me feel like there was a door. For awhile there was because of it getting cancelled initially, but it made me realize that the door couldn’t be open because I wasn’t ready yet. It was one of those cases where it was something God told me I needed to do, just not yet. It was still incredibly scary, though. I was scared that no one could relate. I was doing the friendship talk talking about my struggle with social anxiety in the crowd of popular kids. It was a lot of fear, but God pulled me through that door and didn’t let fear sway me from that decision.

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As I talked about last time, a door I was faced with was whether or not to continue pursuing my dream of playing golf in college. I didn’t have these 4 steps to go off of, but I used a lot of my own intuition and advice I got from my peers, coaches, and family. It really helped smooth that out. In hindsight I realized that God hadn’t given me an answer yet. I also realized that the door was a good and virtuous door. I realized that It couldn’t hurt me either way because I had some good safety nets academically. Finally with al things considered, I took a little leap of faith and ended up where I wanted

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Currently, I have no major decisions on my plate. I know what college I’m going to, I’ve preselected a major, I’m playing D1 golf. Things are about as figured out now as they have ever been, but I’m going to talk about when they weren’t. About a year ago, I was faced with a pretty major decision. I was forced to choose either to pursue academics and give up my dream of D1 golf, or to grind on and possibly waste months of my life and thousands of dollars of my parents’ money. I had to make this decision because my golf game really wasn’t where it needed to be. I played awful in tournaments and was ranked about 2500 in the world rankings knowing that I would need to be at least in the top 1000 to have a shot at D1. I had tried to reach out, but a coach wouldn’t even email me back. I had DIII up the wazoo, but that wasn’t the dream. I had to decide whether or not to give up on my dream, and it was the hardest decision I’d ever had to make. I had begun to doubt myself. I wondered if I was good enough or if I belonged. Everyone would say I deserved it, that I was a diamond in the rough, but no one saw it. When I thought about it and realized the only thing keeping me from my dream was fear of not being good enough, I decided to face it head on. With the help of my parents, Cami, and my coaches, I started emailing every D1 program I could find basically asking them if I could come out there and play against their guys for a shot at the team. I took control for the situation, and it was that Hail Mary with no time on the clock effort that got me to this happy and secure place I am now. It took so much out of me for so long, but it was all finally worth it.

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I took Latin my first three years, so I kinda had a grasp that the idea was to go against, but I didn’t know what it meant to go against. Now I know that it is going against those things that keep us from God or our disordered attachments. One way I can do this is through prayer. I know that is the foundation for all big life changes. If I want to change, I have to get God in on it too. Another way is to reach out to those I care about. Like I said, I tend to seclude to my pile of work or in my golf, but I should go out of my way to show them the love they show me. I also can start releasing my physical attachments by starting a memory journal maybe so I can hold onto the memories without necessarily holding onto the object.

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My three disordered attachments are probably my attachment to social media, desire to fill my life with other distractions, and attachments to physical things. Social media is one I mentioned before, and it is basically a means of procrastination for me. It is what pulls me away from my true goals and desires. Those are hard, but mindless things like social media are easy. By distractions for my 2nd one I mean things like golf and school work. Those are be themselves good things, but sometimes I dive into them so deeply that I start to leave out friends and family. I lose my other meaningful relationships because I want to pack my life so full of stuff. That brings me to my third one. I fill my life with physical stuff too. I am a very sentimental person, so objects can mean a lot to me. Sometimes I get so attached to an object that I start to forget about what it represents and the history and memories behind it which are much more important.

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My discernment comes a lot from the teachings of people better than me at it. I get a lot from my priests or Bible passages. I also have great mentors in the faith. One of my biggest mentors is Mr. Galli. He has helped me to fully form my ideas of morality in the church, and he backs it all up with scripture. I think the best way to help teach you to discern is through a knowledgeable mentor.

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I think my answer for this will be the same as many other people, but it has to be social media. As great and useful as it can be, it is also a source of much of the darkness in the world right now. People posting about the perfect parts of their lives while ignoring the good can lead people who look on down a dark path. It’s the cause of a lot of self doubt and self consciousness that definitely leads to depression. I believe it is good in controlled doses, but it has definitely invaded my life far too much.

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I feel closest to God when I am around other people. I experience God in my life through the lives of those around me. That’s why I enjoy being around people so much because as much as it is social time, it is also my time with God. I have such amazing friends that care for and love me, but none have made me feel God’s presence in my life like my girlfriend Cami. She is truly an angel, so innocent and sweet and kind. You could ask literally anyone that knows her how she is and they would all give you the same ringing endorsement. Very rarely these days do you find such a beautiful girl that is Catholic without acting like a nun, or so obsessed with sex and social media that they plaster themselves out there for all to see. She is just such a homely soul that matches my own. I am told a pretty decent amount by other people how lucky I got, and I agree.

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Practically, I would like to be a surgeon someday if the golfing career doesn’t work out. Whatever I do, I want to be able to help people while making enough money to build a good life for my future family. Golf is the dream, and I can inspire people in that way. The more practical way for me to help would be as a surgeon healing peoples’ bodies. Both would make me very happy.

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I am a son, brother, Catholic, boyfriend, student, golfer, retreat leader, and much more. I have always been one that has tried to do a lot of everything. I get too bored doing the same thing for too long. As long as I can remember I’ve been a Catholic as well. It has been rocky at times, but it has helped me through some of the toughest times of my life and I’m grateful for it.