I have a tendency to look backward when I turn off the light.
My eyes quickly pore over my surroundings and attempt to memorize the small details as it all goes dark. Because there’s always been a certain finality to leaving something behind: turning off the light, closing the door, and accepting that you don’t know what will change while you’re gone.
I also have a tendency to hate finality.
As my finger hovers slightly above the light switch, and I turn my head back, I make the decision to step away.
Junior year doesn’t feel quite like finality: it felt like both the end of everything I’ve known and the start of everything I’ll come to.
This year, I’ve accomplished almost everything I set out to. And with the dew on the grass and the smell of summer in the air, I’ve begun to grow accustomed to a feeling I am generally unfamiliar with: bliss.
Simple contentment with who I’ve been, who I am, and who I will be. Perhaps it’s the sun shining on my face as I gently float back and forth atop the water, or maybe it’s the songs blasting from my radio when I have all my windows down, but life feels like it did when I was a kid. Only now I’m the one ensuring I don’t drown, the one driving as the breeze whips my hair around, and the one in charge of myself in a distinct way that’s entirely unique to being a teenager.
That’s why it’s a bit hard to accept that I’m turning my back on this year and taking the step forward. Hope may be strong, but comfort is inherently stronger, and its desperate pull to keep me in the past is futile, although it may be hard to accept.
As a kid, my parents would joke with me about keeping a stack of books on my head so that it would become impossible to grow taller. I understand how they felt now, through my fruitless attempts to stay grounded as everything around me is moving faster than I can register.
And maybe I’m a bit too sentimental and a bit too optimistic, but I’ll miss how I feel at this exact moment. I’m on the cusp of something truly terrifying and amazing, teetering over the edge, afraid to make my leap of faith, but with the faint hope that everything is going to turn out just fine.
I hope that when I turn 17, and then 18, and then 19, and every year I am lucky to have past that, I will remember exactly who I am and have been; where I’ve come from.
“It’s been a long, long time since I’ve memorized your face
It’s been four hours now since I’ve wandered through your place”
I’m turning off the light now. I take one last look over my shoulder and frantically try to memorize everything behind me before it all goes dark, and then I step forward.
