High school graduates in 2023 lived through 4 years of COVID. My daughter came out of it OK.

Every high school graduating class likes to consider itself unique.

For the most part, it isn't true. You walk into ninth grade unsure and uneasy, and you walk out of 12th grade thinking you know everything — until you get into college, or basic training or the real workforce.

That changed these past four years, ever since a five-letter word — usually ALL CAPS — upended so many things about so many lives.

The class of 2023 is the first group of graduates who lived through and attended classes under COVID-19, from freshman to senior year.

Their freshman year was rudely interrupted by a March Madness like no other — complete shutdowns of sports, live entertainment, community events and in-person classrooms. Welcome to virtual education. Where can I find a mask?

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Their sophomore year was a continuation of virtual education from home, or a mix of learning from home in the first half of the school year then transitioning back to school amid masks, social distancing and positive COVID tests that sent them home again under quarantine for 10 days.

Their junior year was an uneasy entry back to school full-time but things still not looking quite the same. Teachers leaving, classmates struggling, community engaged in culture wars over the handling of the pandemic.

Things appeared normal their senior year, but there were occasional mask restrictions, cases of COVID and more teachers leaving. As the days on the calendar dwindle to graduation, they can't wait to get out and get on with their lives.

My daughter, Alexandra Pugliese, is one of those graduating from high school this month. I can still see her, sitting across from me at the dining room table, doing school work three years ago. Then, wearing a mask to school. Wondering when she would be able to perform in a play. Away from school, watching her and the rest of the dancers put on a recital in the studio's parking lot. Often upset because she could not hang out with her friends.

Miss Alex has seen many of those friends change; not the normal evolution of a teenager, but an abnormal shift of personality brought on by isolation and lack of social interaction. I'd like to think she — and her classmates — will be OK. I worry we may not know the effects of these four years until much later.

Unlike her older sister — Victoria, class of 2020 — Alex has been able to attend prom and Grad Bash at Universal and is looking forward to other late-year senior events, including a graduation in a packed stadium filled with mask-less relatives and friends.

For the majority of her four years at Viera High School, she's managed to be a normal student. That included being inducted into the National Honor Society with an actual ceremony, serving as president of VHS Theater Troupe 7083 and conducting in-person meetings, performing in numerous plays, serving as emcee for several theater-related programs and experiencing many of the day-to-day things high school students normally go through.

More importantly, Alex has never wavered from her goal of performing on Broadway someday. She's known since she was in elementary school that she wanted to sing and dance and act. And, we're not talking local theater.

The earliest hint came from a church Christmas play while we were living in Iowa. They needed someone very young to play an angel. There were only a couple of lines. But 6-year-old Alex nailed them without a hint of nervousness.

From there, with a short COVID respite, it has been a steady stream of dancing classes (tap, jazz, ballet, point, lyrical) and recitals, auditions and performing in school plays and singing lessons and cabarets. We have kept the florists in business with post-performance bouquets and flooded Facebook with photos and videos from the stage.

During the pandemic, Alex used the isolation to practice her singing and dancing. Not that she ever slacked off in that area. If you have to practice to get to Carnegie Hall, the same holds true for the Great White Way. She sings everywhere — in the car, in her room, in the bathroom. She constantly works on her steps for dance and we're grateful we're on the first floor.

Even college tours and auditions for musical theater programs were affected by COVID. Some tours were virtual, others in-person but with masks and smaller groups. Some auditions were remote via a video of her best work. Others on campus and live.

Happily, all that work has paid off. Alex was accepted into the University of Tampa musical theater program — the top-ranked program in the state — after a pressure-packed audition last fall, and she earned a Minaret scholarship. We like to think there is a happy ending to this play.

Still, there always will be a part of her high school experience categorized under "lost" amid the sad reality that any memory box from these past four years must contain masks, vaccine ID cards, home testing kits, tickets for events never held, photos of friends who are no longer in the picture.

Three years ago, I wrote a graduation letter to my oldest daughter and the class of 2020. I implored them to use the experience of having the last third of their senior year marked with an asterisk to go forward, forget about what they lost, cherish what they still had and look toward the future with hope.I will ask my youngest daughter and the class of 2023 to do the same. I also will ask them to do something else.

I will challenge them to be good people. The world has grown meaner the last few years, and it's up to the youths to break that cycle. Life is hard and you will face plenty of challenges — whether you are trying out for a play on Broadway, trying to land your first job, or entering the military amid plenty of world chaos and uncertainty.

It costs nothing to smile more, laugh more, enjoy more, be a positive force. And, if you're doing all that someday in the future, employed in an occupation you love and surrounded by family and friends, you are indeed headed for a rich life.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Graduating high schoolers in 2023 experienced 4 unique years due to COVID