It’s this insane roller coaster that just veers wildly between impossible and amazingly easy, and I am right in the middle. It’s like living two worlds all at once-one that is strangling under expectations and the other oddly relaxed, given senioritis.
The toughest would be the college search. As each of us tried to make sense of how to choose a school that felt right. It’s intimidating, trying to decide where to want to spend the next four years of your life. “Do I want a big university or a small college? Am I even ready for this?”
We’d vocalize our apprehensions, and each question felt heavier than the last. But then there’s this lighter side to senior year. Classes become this weird combination of high stress and lax amusement. In my Newspaper class with Mr. Yunt, we get to talk about what we want within the rules, which makes Senior year very fun. His enthusiasm is infectious, we argued and debated, and in that one moment, I could forget about deadlines. Those hours felt like a safe haven from the chaos of the college application process.
But the instant the bell rang, I’d remember how I had yet to tackle my personal statement-a monumental task. And then there’s senioritis. It’s an almost contagious virus that Sweeps down the halls. I would feel invincible and ready to take on my work on good days. On bad days, I stared into my math textbook, so sure that with enough staring, the trig problems would dance across my page and solve themselves. The truth is, the end of high school feels close enough that the motivation starts to scare me.
Why bother cramming for a test when all I can think about is the freedom that awaits?
It is an odd sort of contradiction, the excitement of being so close to the end of school, with the weight of applying to colleges. Rather frequently, I dreamt about what was to come for my college career and was not even halfway through my senior year yet! Me on campus, meeting new people and starting fresh. Every time I open my laptop to work on an application, that dream feels far away, almost unreachable. But amidst all that chaos, and all that stress, I am somehow able to find a little comfort within everything going on. I learned to celebrate small victories-the day I finished my college essay, or when I got a really good grade on a test (Minus my Trig class). Each one of these minimal successes seems like the little kid’s pool arm floaties in the 15-foot pool of uncertainty. With my friends around me making Senior year feel as if it would last forever but also make it feel like its flying by, through highs and lows, the feeling was not so daunting anymore. We all talk about how we need to get our grades higher but we still don’t do our work, yet somehow still manage to pull it all together and get through.
As graduation comes closer, I realize that though senior year its definitely going to get harder, it is covered in moments of both clarity and joy. I have learned through my high school career to appreciate the transience of it all. The last football games, late-night study cramming, the goodbyes that won’t be happy ones. In the end, wherever we all end up, it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey to the destination.
