Where’d All the Time Go?
In true rising senior fashion, I am starting this essay way later than I should be. It’s funny how people tell you how fast high school will fly by while simultaneously saying you have plenty of time to figure out whatever it is you want to do. I’m going to be starting my college apps soon, and I still don’t know what that is for me. Fun fact, when Taylor Swift wrote “I’m only 17, I don’t know anything,” she was actually talking about me!
Sitting down to write this essay was a lot harder for me than it should've been. After all, a personal essay is a reflection of self, and seeing as I spend every waking moment hanging out with, well, myself, writing about it shouldn't be this complicated. At this point, I am T-minus three days from the first day of my senior year. My senior year. Between my summer work for AP classes and general teenage angst I’ve been dealing with, I haven’t exactly had a lot of time to let that sink in it. Last time I checked, I was still a little girl grabbing candy at the checkout of my local CVS, pouring over the dozens of library books I borrowed, and making sandcastles at the beach, all while holding hands with my mom.
When you’re young, you think you got it all figured out. At least, I did. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted. Turn 18. Get into college. Move out into said college. See what’s out there for yourself and never look back. Now that I’m actually here, I’m starting to second-guess everything. Is this what I actually want, or is it something I’ve just convinced myself will work? All my life, I feel as if I’ve been held back. That I’m not living my life to the fullest because of all the expectations and pressures that I’ve dealt with since I was a child.
Halfway through writing this essay, I had to start over because I realized I wasn’t being honest with myself. I found myself romanticizing this life that doesn’t make me happy anymore. I’m a tragically sentimental person, but I can’t let that hold me back anymore. I can’t let anything hold me back anymore. That voice in my head that’s telling me to stay here, conform to someone else’s ideas of me, causing me to doubt myself, it may occupy a space in my mind, but it’s not me.
The part of me that says “Hey, you’ve wanted this for your whole life,” that’s me. The little girl that looks exactly like me, but smaller, she’s a part of me as well. I’ve stopped trying to make decisions based on the voices of others and those in my head and started to listen to my inner child more. Think about the last time (or one of the first times) you were truly happy, it’s probably a moment from your childhood, right? Way before anyone’s thoughts or actions could taint your heart. I’m trying to channel that pure, innocent, unbridled happiness again. One that doesn’t leave me wondering if it could be the last time I ever feel it.
I know this all sounds very dramatic right now, and I hope it is. I hope I read this one year from now sitting in my college dorm laughing at myself because it all worked out. For now though, I think I reserve the right to freak out a little. Senior year hasn’t even started yet, and I already feel behind. It’s very possible that I’m overthinking all this. That I’m letting my self-doubt get the best of me. I need to remind myself that I’m only a teenager, that it won’t be like this forever. I know deep down that I will be okay. I truly believe and trust that I will end up where I belong. I know college isn’t everything, I know there is life without it, but from where I’m standing, it’s hard to see that. (It also doesn’t help that I’m very short and have awful eyesight.)
Even though I haven’t made the crucial, life-altering, debt-inducing decision of where I want to go or what I want to do, I do have a choice that I can make right now. I can either choose to let this doubt and worry take over me, or I can choose to get over it and be excited for what the future holds. What do people say, focus on the journey not the destination? Well, I’m focusing on the destination because it’s one of the few things keeping me going. Knowing that all this emotional turmoil is going to amount to something great for me, will make it all worth it.
For now, I’ll just live for the hope of it all. For me, that’s enough.