Dear Present me,
I think I’m in a state of contradiction regarding how quickly things are changing—it’s like all my peers around me are racing toward the future, and I just want to stay in the present. It’s such an ethereal feeling to think that in just 61 days, I will officially be an alumna of Forest Hills Central High School.
And I don’t think I’m ready to come to terms with that truth hanging above my head.
I don’t think I’m ready to accept that in just 54 days, I will no longer be a high school student but a rising freshman in college.
I don’t know if I’m ready for that. I can’t imagine leaving a place where most of my transformative years of schooling took place. I don’t know if I’m ready to start the next chapter of my life and leave behind the many memories I’ve created here.
I don’t know if I’m ready for everything to change.
I’m not ready for everyone to start the next chapter of their lives.
I’m not ready for everyone to only be a phone call or text message away.
I’m not ready for my parents to officially earn the title of “empty nesters.”
I’m not ready for my sister to begin her entrance into medical school.
I’m not ready for any of it, and I don’t think I ever will be.
It feels like I’ve been a pebble on a sidewalk for the entirety of senior year, and I kind of wish my life could always be like that.
I’m so scared that the memory of me here will dissolve the second I graduate. I want the footprints that I’ve left all over the school to stay there for as long as they can because everything is changing all too fast.
I find it quite ironic how we receive our graduation gowns on the same day that the whole world shut down, March 13th.
Even the school is changing in ways I never thought possible. By the time I’m a freshman in college, the school will undergo a massive structural transformation. And if that’s not enough to make it nearly unrecognizable, our APUSH teacher of 30 years and high school principal are retiring as of this year.
It honestly makes me wonder if when I come to visit, FHC will be the same school it once was. I hope that my impact on this school will continue to be a remnant of it no matter how many changes this building undergoes.
As much as I want everything to stay the same, I know that one day, it’s all going to change. And it already has. The changes in my life didn’t feel real until today, the day I received my cap and gown.
The day I received my cap and gown was the day I realized that everything that was happening around me was no longer an unattainable dream but rather a lifestyle, a lifestyle that was the entrance of changing every aspect of my life.
And as much as I’m not ready for those changes, I know that when the day and time comes for me to experience those changes, I will be ready.
Sincerely,
Present me
