Welp, seniors, this is it, our final year. In less than a year, we will walk out of those doors as students for the last time. For some of us, the last time ever. We will move on to bigger and greater things, using what we have learned here to guide us through the next three quarters of our lives. Even though it feels we have come a long way, our time in this world has only really just begun in the grand scheme of things. We will truly enter a world far beyond anything we have yet to experience, full of new risks and fears, but also new opportunities, loves, hopes, and chances. All this, in less than a year. A beginning of an end.
That’s then. This is now.
Now, we have a monumental task ahead of us. Likely the hardest any of us has faced yet. While it feels as though it’s business as usual in the high school world, the winds of change now approach our class. Exams, colleges, letters of recommendation, and that’s not to mention all the other aspects of adulthood, like taxes, voting, and being on our own.
We’ll still have family, friends, and other people we can rely on, but for the first time in our lives, we will begin to be truly independent. We will move away, off to colleges and beyond, buying our own food, paying our own bills, making our own decisions. For now, the next year of our lives will become partially dedicated to preparing ourselves for that next step, into that independence. Learning what it means to be an adult, what it means to be self-reliant, and what it means to take responsibility. An end of a beginning.
I’d be lying if I wasn’t even a little afraid of the road that lies ahead of me, as I’m sure most seniors do feel. Change can be a scary thing. It’s abstract, foreign to us. There’s always some bad to change, no matter how good it is. However, change cannot wait. Not for us. In less than a year, we will walk out of those doors as students for the last time.
We can meet that change with fear and loss and cling to these days as college and adult life walk by, paying us no mind. Or, we can prepare for our futures and meet that change with our heads held high, knowing that we are about to step into something grander than we have ever experienced. The choice is ours. We are at a crossroads. It’s the beginning of an end, and the end of a beginning. What choice will you make?
