Katelyn Cousins

A picture of my last homecoming with one of the people I will miss the most next year

My 18th birthday came and went. Now, it is on to the more exciting change: college. 

High school is over. I will no longer spend seven hours a day, five days a week, with the same people for four years. High school is over. 

It’s on to a new journey; I will spend countless hours studying, greeting, and crying with new faces. I will move on soon. High school will be bittersweet memories and nothing more. 

But how? How can the past four years of my life only be built up to the rest? 

These four years of high school have all led to leaving. Their only purpose was to get me ready for college. They supposedly had no other justification.

But to me, they were important because I spent time with some of my favorite people. 

I have grown up with these people. We have watched each other grow out of our awkward elementary and middle school phases, and we have watched as four years have passed by. I said “goodbye,” and now I don’t know when I will see them again.

But to me, high school was the jewel in the crown of my childhood. 

I went through middle school yearning to be older, to get to high school. High schoolers were the big kids, and I wanted to be a big kid so badly. Now, the four years are gone: freshman year a blur of COVID-19, sophomore year a long stretch of new, junior year a speed run of normality, and senior year a blink of the end of everything. 

I spent high school wishing it away. Now, I am terrified and exhilarated by the knowledge that I leave for college in a few weeks. High school was long and short and horrible and amazing and over. 

What if I spend my college years wishing them away, too? It’s my curse. I wish away the moment for what my future could hold. I wished away my high school experience for my senior year, then wished away my senior year for this. For college, for the summer before college, for anything but high school. 

Now, I will break the curse. 

Now, I am filled with fear.

Now, I am so excited. 

Now, everything is different. 

Now, high school is over. I will no longer spend seven hours a day, five days a week, with the same people for four years. High school is over. 

Now, I will move on to a new challenge: not wishing away my college experience.