An unbreakable chain, an indestructible pattern, my days are all beginning to feel the same. Though the newness of September has not fully set in, my weeks are growing with repetition.

Looking ahead feels so distant and the thought of what the future entails seems convoluted and onerous. I urge myself to feel excitement and anticipation for the impending days, but a heavy blanket drapes a hollowness over my bones; everyday will just replicate the next.

I live waiting for the next break, the next recess, and can never feel contentment in my current circumstance. I wait for the change of seasons, the next weekend getaway, the next time I don’t have to think—but this is no way to experience myself, to experience life.

I waste my respites anticipating guilt and discomfort and never just exist where I am—I never settle in the presence. With all of the mapping out the future and analyzing of the past I do, I leave nothing to the spontaneity of my daily pursuits. 

The past is self-explanatory; it has passed. It does not exist in the present anymore. When I constantly linger on the past, all that results from it is unresolved sensitivities and what I wish I should have done or said. The past cannot be changed by any means, so it deserves no energy or thoughts that cannot fix it. The past should gracefully be forgotten and selectively remembered.

The future, in reality, is just the imagination. Every scenario, every conversation, every action I concoct in my head is all just a facade of a dreamed up world. Although the future is intimidatingly inextricable, just a sliver of mystery for the unknown is enough to revel in the present moment just by a fraction.

As I invariably feel a lingering sense of tedious tasks and gray-washed days, the approaching months will be fruitful in one way or another. There can be beauty to repetition, especially when this is my last year of experiencing it in such high doses. Though adulthood is inevitably going to be scattered with menial duties and burdens, my last year of high school will be the capstone of it all.

What I am garnering from this monumental year is how grateful I am for the experiences I have accumulated over the twelve years of school I have encountered and how the silhouettes of the future are something that I will one day not admire from afar. 

The present is an everlasting, divine gift that deserves attention. And while the past and future have a large sum of value and allure to be seen, the presence is constantly blooming with wildflowers and life that often gets overlooked by long stretches of road, lengthening for miles. I’m taking it upon myself to savor the routines I have cultivated over the years as they will fade into the coming months. 

Every nuance, every emotion, and every habit of being seventeen comes with a tie of gravity in my soul. As the presence will always be ingrained in my path, I will never experience this version again; this version of the present is something I am training myself to grow and fall in love with.