T-minus a few months and coutnting

DUBLIN – The last semester of high school is for “one last time” before goodbyes are exchanged; adventures and new beginnings are inaugural.

It’s my last semester in high school. At this point, a student is either crying because they are going to miss high school or eagerly counting down the days until they can leave all this behind them.

I remember a moment during my sophomore year when a classmate and I laughed at our seniors who told us to enjoy these days in high school because we were going to miss them once they were over.

I thought, “Who, aside from a masochist, would ever miss this?”

To be fair though, I was 15 years old and thought my world was ending. My hormones were out of control, and responsibilities were springing up like weeds alongside the flowered and promised expectations.

In other words, sophomore year was the worst year of high school to tell me something like that.

My response has obviously changed since that foggy Sophomore morning. It makes me also wonder how much of this day I will remember as the ball drops into 2028.

I can’t say that I fully understand what my seniors were warning me about, but during the most random moments, I get the feeling that I’ll soon know exactly what wisdom they were about to impart.

Sometimes I get the feeling in a moment a person would expect, like when I ask a classmate what classes she is taking this semester and realize she is taking a completely different set of classes to prepare for the field she wants to go into compared to me and my field of interest; I remember when we were in the same classes in the beginning as we knocked the core of high school out of the way.

This particular classmate proceeds to tell me where she plans to attend college and how she will make a difference in this world with her biochemistry major. I can only trust that she’ll do exactly that because while she strives to make this world a better place, I’m working toward building fictional worlds so others can escape their voices of reality for a little while.

However, not every moment is cliche like the one above. Sometimes it’s when I send that one classmate a meme, which reminds me of how we used to be so doubtful about a hard test for our biology class; we were taking together our junior year that we would pray outside in the lobby and chant “May the odds be ever in our favor” as marched down the corridor. Onward Christian soldiers.

I can’t say this has been the most emotional school year, because my sophomore year holds the most tears, followed closely by my junior year. However, there’s just something about this year that pulls at you in a different and bittersweet way.

I believe it’s all the goodbyes that’s already been said by the second semester of the school year and the ones yet to be said until the very end.

My classmates and I have already lived through our last first day of high school, as well as our last Thanksgiving and Christmas on our way out. We have said our goodbyes to the past year, where our journey has been restricted to classes in Bladen County, and introduce ourselves to next year’s “weeds and “flowers” where we will branch out to whatever journey each of us will take next.

Yet, before we get there, we still have what is arguably one of the best semesters of high school left.

I have already chosen the university I plan to attend, but my other classmates who have yet to make a decision tell me about their tough options.

On the other hand, the classmates who have chosen their university, are alongside me filling out scholarship applications and essays in the guidance counselor’s office.

Prom is approaching as well, with decorations being discussed, along with my female counterparts talking about what they are going to wear for their final prom and who their lucky person chosen to dance with them.

All too soon, graduation will come and we’ll all say our final goodbyes as we celebrate making it to the end of these four years.

And on this special day, I’ll finally be able to cry not for how much more I have to give to reach the end of this journey but ironically for how much I’ll miss it; I guess my seniors did know what they were talking about.