It’s the day all seniors dread from the minute school lets out for summer two and a half months earlier. The day when part of our freedom is taken away from us. The freedom of late summer nights without a care in the world – gone; the freedom of clear minds with rested souls – gone. Now, we have the fear of inauspicious AP exams and college to worry about. Granted, some, if not most, seniors have taken an AP class before, but it’s a different scenario.
College is a looming force that has been quietly throwing stones at our windows for three years, but today it got impatient and decided to smash a boulder, shattering the glass that is our safety net, exposing us to reality. We are bare and vulnerable; not yet mature enough to handle the thought of change, but still anxious for the day we walk across the stage to hold a paper that justifies what we wasted four years of our lives learning things 90% of us won’t retain. A paper most of us will likely show off to the world by confining it in a picture frame in offices.
But why are we so proud of a piece of paper? Because it’s not the literal paper, but what it stands for. Struggles and hardships alongside success and happiness are just part of the systematic culture of high school. No one can escape that awkward outfit your mom picked out for you that one day when you were an underclassman(don’t deny it didn’t happen)and no one can forget the first sports game they play, the first theatre production they are a part of, the first byline with their name on it, the first A they get.
Whatever it is, you remember it. That’s because high school is all about the experiences. You have to wear that awkward outfit with pride; dye your hair crazy colors; be loud and unapologetic and proud; do things you might regret later because if you don’t, you’ll never get a chance to experiment in an environment as forgiving as high school again.
But back to us seniors. We’ve heard that speech a dozen times over. Our speech is a little different. The time for experimenting is done. Don’t be brash and stupid. Don’t do things that you’ll get in trouble for. You’ve been steadily climbing the rope up since you started high school and now you’re at the top. Do anything to jeopardize that and you fall right back to the start and it’s impossible to get yourself back to where you were before in merely one year.
Speaking of one year – senior year, for what I’ve been told, goes by with the blink of an eye. Blink. It’s been a month. Blink. Football season is over. Blink. The winter musical closes. Blink. It’s prom. Blink. AP exams. Blink. Graduation. Blink. High school is over forever.
Senior year is our last chance to do what we want before going out into the real world. The real world doesn’t have classrooms to learn in, textbooks to study or ACT tests to take. That is something we have to prepare ourselves for.
No test we take can prepare up for the rest of our lives.
Senior year is upon us. Hopefully we can make the best of it.
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