Don’t Wish Your Life Away

As we approach the end of the school year we all share one common goal- to get out of here as soon as we can and move on to what teachers call the ‘real world’. In just a few weeks we will all be freshly graduated laying in the hot sun by the pool or at the beach, feeling grateful we never have to worry about high school again.

When August rolls around we will start feeling butterflies, both excitement and fear of starting college, exactly how we felt when we entered high school as Freshmen. The first few weeks will pass by, and we’ll think that we could never get sick of this place.

“It’s new, exciting, and the classes are even better than I expected!” We’ll think.

I don’t know about you, but this is exactly what I thought my first few weeks of high school. And now after plenty of high school experience I have no idea what I was thinking. A lot of people ask me, “Why did you decide to graduate early? Don’t you want to graduate with your friends?” and I always tell them that I don’t like school, because that is the truth. I don’t like getting up early, I don’t like sitting in a classroom all day, I don’t like assignments and deadlines and homework and summatives and formatives, I don’t like presenting, I don’t like school. There’s nothing bad about this, everyone has their own opinions and we all have to do things we don’t want or like to do, that’s just life.

In all honesty, even though it would be nice to graduate with my friends, I’ll always see them again anyway.

I’m exactly like my mom in that way, she graduated early as well because she didn’t like school. My grandfather always told her, “when you’re older and working everyday, you’re going to miss high school,” but she told me, “I never for one second wished I was back in high school, I don’t miss it one bit,” and I’m sure I’ll be thinking the same way.

I decided to graduate early Sophomore year, at the end of the first semester. I’ve been planning to graduate early since 7th grade, but was not positive that I wanted to until last year. And last year was rough for me. I could barely concentrate on my school work because I was dreading going to school the next day and I know I didn’t get the grades I wanted.

A lot of people also ask me, “How many study halls did you take?” and I tell them “Well, I took two Freshman year and one Sophomore year” and they always respond with “How?”. Honestly, it doesn’t make sense at first glance, but after sitting down with Guidance and having it explained that if I took an extra college course online I would gain all my credits, it all pieces together.

Anyway, back to Sophomore year. In the midst of that school year I would lay in my bed at night not wanting to sleep because I still wanted time away from school. It’s also important to mention that I hate winter, so the January and February months were extra miserable. I wanted to be out of school, I wanted to lay in my bed for the rest of the year and just. Be. Done. But I knew that wasn’t even an option so I figured I would just have to try to make the best of it.

And yes, I did, in fact, try to tell myself that I am fortunate to have a school to go to in the first place, and a safe one, for that matter.

But I knew I would need more encouragement to actually enjoy and appreciate school.

So, feeling stupid because it is just school, I looked it up. Yes, I looked up exactly “how to make school go by fast” on the internet, because why not get advice from random people online? Maybe I can gain some superpower in which I can speed up and slow down time, because that would be helpful. I clicked on one article that sounded appealing from what I could read and hoped for the best.

I remember scrolling through that article that night, but I honestly can’t remember what the author told me to do. What I do remember, however, that has stuck with me since is “you don’t want to wish your life away”.

When I first read that sentence it amazed me. I realized that I was, in fact, wishing my life away. And I shouldn’t be.

I only thought “don’t wish your life away” would stick with me for a day at the most, but a year and a half later, everyday that I find myself thinking “I wish this day would go by faster” I remind myself that I don’t want to wish my life away because, even as cliche as it is, I do only live once.

And now look, I’m graduating soon. I won’t have to worry about school anymore but I made a ton of memories. If I wished my life away a year and a half ago to get to this day sooner, I would already be a year and a half into my future from now, which is a year and a half I could never get back.

You can always get your future back because what you plan on doing doesn’t always actually happen.

But the past is different. There’s no time machines and we’ve had plenty of movies to show that they wouldn’t work quite how we want them to.

Right now I have a loving family, a home, friends, and more than I ever need. I don’t want to wish my life away from them. I don’t want to keep thinking about things I don’t want to do and wishing I didn’t have to do, I want to focus on the good in my life because the only thing that doesn’t die is a memory. And I want my memories to not be about wishing my life away, but accepting it and moving forward.

I hope that if any of you have ever thought that you want the day, week, month, or even year to be over, just remember that you don’t want to wish your life away because you’ll be missing out on much more than a day, you’ll be missing out on many memories that will help shape your future.

Photo on Foter.com