By; Peyton Rivers
Inside the Life of Halley Gramer
Outside of school senior Halley Gramer keeps herself very busy. Despite maintaining excellent grades with extracurriculars and AP classes, she is also athletic. As a gymnast, much of her time is spent in the gym. She has been doing gymnastics at Arnold’s Gymnastics Academy for over a decade. Over the last four years, she has been a contributing member of the high school gymnastics team and is now a senior captain.
“I like gymnastics because I have a lot of friends on my team and it’s super fun because I get to be active and do flips. I also work at my gym” she adds. “I coach gymnastics to little kids ages six to ten years old. My favorite is when the kids like me and attach to me, but I hate it when they don’t listen. I definitely have my favorites though!”
In her family, Halley is the middle child, and she likes it that way, even though she believes it gets hated on. Her older brother Kyle is already in college. Just an hour before this interview, she submitted her application to her brother’s school, Northeastern University. Halley believes that she gets along better with Kyle because they have more similar interests and dislikes. She considers herself close with both of her siblings and misses Kyle being home with the family. What she misses most is watching the office every night and playing catch with a football.
Her sister said to her, “You are gonna miss me a lot.” with a big smile across her face. Halley explains how Ashley “is always so sad about how she is going to be lonely. She told me I am not allowed to go to college far away”.
Halley’s relationship with her parents is similar to most. She loves her parents and is very appreciative of them and what they do for her family. But no parent is one hundred percent perfect.
“I like them both for different reasons and I don’t like them for different reasons too. I like my dad because he is creative and inspirational, he is so smart and thinks outside the box. He can be annoying in the sense that he is a lot. Like he will hug me ten times a day, I know it’s not a problem but it’s too much for me.” she laughs. “My mom goes above and beyond for everything. She makes my lunch every morning, she wakes me up for school so I don’t have to set an alarm. I just don’t like it when she compares me to Kyle, because I am not him.”
Each year Halley and her family rent the same house just a couple steps away from the beach in Eastham Massachusetts. This is one of her favorite places because it is so closely associated with family and the beaches are beautiful. Her favorite treat to get down the Cape is ice cream.
“Usually, my go-to order is chocolate ice cream with rainbow sprinkles.” she says. “When I was little, I used to get strawberry ice cream because it was the color pink. I don’t even like strawberry ice cream. I LOVE the color pink!” she repeats. “But when we go down the cape, I get s’moreo from this specific place. It’s a nice change, and it’s the only place I can get it.”
Outside of dessert if Halley could eat one food for the rest of her life it would be pasta, specifically penne. Because of her love for her family and pasta Halley wants to travel to Italy. Within her lifetime, she has traveled to a variety of places with her family.
“I would love to visit Italy because of the pasta and I have Italian heritage. But I couldn’t live there permanently because I’d want to come back here.”
Gramer explains that she is unsure what the future holds, but she is excited. She hopes in ten years she will be living on her own with a job that she likes. Halley is very set on keeping the circle of friends that she has now. As of today, her focus is on applying to different colleges.
“I am nervous about college, I am applying undecided but looking in the field of science.” she says as she starts playing with her nails. My top school is Holy Cross. I like the size and location, I have done two tours there and I like the vibes. I just hope I get in.”
In college, Halley has made a personal goal to study abroad. She loves to experience new cultures and ways of life.
She could “temporarily” live in another country but for only a year. But not for like a long time because I’d want the experience but then I’d want to come back here.”
For most people big changes and growing up can be both very scary and exciting. For Halley, she wants to stay close to home because of her tight-knit relationship with her family. Traveling young, is a passion of hers that she intends to pursue as she learns more about herself and the world around her. No matter where she ends up, she will always be that person that loves the color pink and chocolate ice cream with rainbow sprinkles.