confessions of a teenage drama queen #3: i'm doing senior miss at my school. why? i'm not the pageant type at all. but for some reason i wanted to do it. just to be different. anyways, my talent is going to be reading some of my writing which i am so nervous about. i hate reading in front of people. but here's the piece!
Nostalgia: a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time
Four years ago I never would have suspected I would have these feelings towards a place where I’m supposed to tuck my shirt in, eat my lunch in twenty three minutes, and write Pledged on the top of all my papers. Honestly, four years ago senior year seemed like a place that I would never reach, a simply unattainable goal filled with obstacles like surviving Mrs. Pullen’s (well I guess it’s Flowers now) Honors English Class, making an awesome score on the ACT (which never happened no matter how many practice tests in the ACT for Dummies I did in said Honors English Class), and eventually overcoming the infamous disease known as “senioritis.” Going to college was more of a dream than a reality. Driving away from Houston in 2011 and leaving high school in my rearview mirror was something I only hoped for, not something I expected to happen any time soon.
And here I am,a senior. Suffering from the senioritis though not really defeating it, and wondering how I ever thought these four years wouldn’t fly by. I mean we’ve been warned right? We’re always told to cherish it. It only comes around once. If you’re anything like me, you probably disregarded these statements, viewing them as something cliché people are just supposed to tell you. I mean who would actually say to a freshman, “high school sucks, you’re lucky if you make it out alive.” So I didn’t listen. I worried about things that didn’t matter. I spent too many hours studying for the tests I knew I wouldn’t pass. I fought with my friends, even losing some of them in the process. I wished it away. And now I’m one of the people telling my underclassmen friends to cherish it; it only comes around once.
It’s kind of sad to realize that out of the 412 people in our class, most of us don’t even know half of them. I mean I’m on the senior section of the yearbook staff and have asked “who is this person?” when I put their senior picture in the yearbook too many times to remember. But what’s even sadder than that is that in __ weeks, we will never have the opportunity to talk to the people we never got to know. The people we’ve spent every day with the past four years of our lives will go separate ways. On May 20, we’ll say things like “We’ll keep in touch.” But will we? Maybe, maybe not. Just like we’ve all learned to grow together throughout the course of high school, shortly we’ll have to learn to grow apart. The real question is: what will we take with us and what will we leave behind?
Leave behind the tragedies: the heartbreaks, the lost friends, the failed tests, and the embarrassing freshmen moments we all try to forget. But take your memories. Remember winning the big football game, remember 6’ 9 lookin fine Mr. A serenading us first thing in the morning, remember the hot and sweaty homecoming dances, and always remember the people who helped you grow. Friends, ex-friends,ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, teachers, all of them. The people who sat with you on the roller coaster known as high school.
Four years is such a small amount in perspective to your whole life. A brief chapter that we will soon close only to move on to something bigger. But that will never make them less relevant. They mattered. So I guess I already have the feelings of “sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time”, and senior year is only halfway over. What we have to do now is make the most of the time we have left.
So through my melodramatic ramblings and thoughts I guess what I’m trying to say is: Cherish it, it only comes around once.
This part... beautifully written, frighteningly true:
ReplyDelete"we will never have the opportunity to talk to the people we never got to know. The people we’ve spent every day with the past four years of our lives will go separate ways. On May 20, we’ll say things like 'We’ll keep in touch.' But will we?"
I'm so excited! Love it!!
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