For so long, graduating high school seemed like some far off milestone: inevitable, certainly, but only imaginable with an apocalypse or some comparably massive change separating it from the now. And yet, the world ceases to turn, and the future has a funny habit of becoming the present when you’re not paying attention. Worst, or perhaps best of all, it has absolutely no regard for your expectations.
I am fairly certain that my freshman self would have no anticipation of what I am now, thankfully. Though freshman year feels like a hazy blur now, I know it felt longer than a lifetime then. Still, I found Stargazer then, and it stuck, perhaps somewhat improbably. Of course, the me now, having written twenty articles in my final year alone, seems a world apart from the me then, outright frightened to take stories and trying to convince myself I favored the familiarity of silence.
Writing this article still feels surreal, almost like a dream. I thought it was still a million miles away. I just got on the bus, how can it be my stop already? But maybe that is inaccurate, too. Even if it happened in the blink of an eye, high school’s still been a long journey, and I would be a fool to posture otherwise. I have had so many incredible experiences on this trip with Stargazer, but also with the Creative Writing Club and Film Club, and I would be remiss to lump every little thing these last four years into a single amorphous blob of high school.
Now, of course, the end of high school is not much of an ending; it is really a beginning, a door closing to open a new one. As North enters the rearview, eventually to become another marking in the landscape of the past, I cannot help but feel grateful; grateful for having the chance to meet so many amazing people, grateful for learning more about myself that I may have thought possible at the start, grateful to be able to change so much in such little time. If there is one thing about high school I want to carry with me into that mysterious void we call the future, it is that.
I do not really think there is some perfect one-line ending to my high-school experience I could offer; I am doubtful any number of words could replicate the lived experience, and I suppose it would be a fool’s errand to attempt so. Instead, this ending-but-only-kind-of is merely a photograph of the me existing in this moment, however temporary that may prove to be. Even if I can’t see the end of this road, I can look back on the turns of its path thus far, and that carries a person a long way, farther than the eye can see.
