MEEKER | Being a teenager is a weird stage. We are treated like children yet expected to act like adults. We are given the stress of a 30-year-old divorcee with three kids, yet pressured into “enjoying our youth.” Don’t get me wrong, I firmly believe that happiness is a choice, not a destination. My point is simply this: being a teenager is hard work. For high school seniors this confusing season has increased tenfold. We are leaving all that we know to enter a new season full of new possibilities but also new anxieties. Senior year is a storm.
There is the ruckus of the beginning. Lightning that tells you things are about to get real. This is the start of the school year. Beginning your final sport seasons. Senior sunrise and beginning of school year assembly. Then there is the steady downpour. The constant precipitation that keeps you steady. This came about by way of schoolwork and events. During the winter months we were consumed by scholarship applications, university applications, sporting events, and good ol’ classes. Lost in the winter months, school flew by. Piece by piece we set up our futures, preparing for the “distant future.” With the thoughts of “seems so far away.” Then there is now. The break of the storm. The sun shines through. You feel the relief of the rain’s absence yet the longing for its sound. Now we look toward graduation with excited anticipation and nostalgic sadness, trying to compartmentalize and close this chapter.
Today we are absolutely ecstatic to be entering something new, but that doesn’t mean that letting go is an easy process. In fact it is the starting new that has us clinging to the normality of high school. The thought that haunts me the most is that life here will go one without us. Yes, we will be out having new experiences and meeting new people. But everyone here will all be enjoying things that have brought us joy for the last four years. Yes, we are gaining new knowledge and becoming our fullest selves. But our dear younger classmates will be playing the games that brought a smile to our faces since middle school. When thinking about your future during your childhood, you think that you are leaving. But that is not the truth. This life will still be here, we just won’t be a part of it.
Leaving for college is a leap of faith. Faith that you will find a community. Faith that you are strong enough to take care of yourself. Faith that what you have learned here is enough to get you through. But isn’t that what makes life so special. We don’t know what to expect. A plant being planted in a pot of its same size has no room for growth. So I encourage you all to plant yourself into discomfort, while still holding onto the sun that has grown you. Because as Nelson Mandela once said, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” So be courageous. Face a new chapter with fear in your eyes, but hope in your hearts. It’s OK to be afraid, and even a little sad. Because growth is never true without growing pains.
By MYLAH GALLEGOS