Change Is Inevitable

Photo by SMPAGWU on Foter.com / CC BY-SA

When you’re fourteen years old and entering high school, you have a million expectations; at least that’s how it was for me. Recently, I received a letter from my middle school teacher. At the very top of this old sheet of paper, was a date that read June 11th, 2015. The first paragraph was filled with unrelenting questions about what high school was going to be like. Now that it’s over, I’m going to answer a few of these questions. No, it is absolutely nothing like high school musical, and it never will be. Being a senior in high school is a very weird feeling, especially in a global pandemic, and lastly, because I do not have all day and fourteen year old Maya did not cease with her questions, yes, I am terrified. I’m terrified to leave high school because I have never been a fan of change. Ah yes – change. We all have to go through it, so why is it so hard to do? We’ve been conditioned – all of us – to endure it, and it isn’t something that just stops happening one day. 

Walking into school for the first time ever was one of the scariest and most nerve wracking moments of my entire life. I had cried the night before, and the day of, (if you know me, I’m that girl – the one who cries on the first and last day of school – and birthdays). I had gotten all my tears out and I was ready to face the day. I clung to my classmates as we huddled in the auditorium as Mr. Aliberti told us that these next four years would go by extremely fast. We all sighed and rolled our eyes, because this wasn’t the first time we had heard this particular phrase. But he told us that things would change, and things would be very different a year from now. I looked around the room at the people who would make me who I am today, then looked back to the stage. I knew this was going to be a day I would never forget. 

As the days went by, we started to get a feel for the space around us. Days turned into weeks, which turned into months, then years. I watched my classmates become strangers. They were all befriending upperclassmen and getting involved in various sports and clubs. But I was still absolutely petrified to put myself out there, so I stayed in my bubble and watched the relationships I had made become only a distant memory. We were all evolving into different people, and I didn’t know who they were anymore – but then i realized something – I was also changing. Without even knowing it, I had become someone who clung to the past, and all this time I was refusing to change, yet I was already doing that without knowing. Change is inevitable. As much as I wanted to stay the same, I was a different person. I was growing. 

It took me a long time to accept the change. Now that I’ve accepted it, it’s over. High school isn’t supposed to be the best four years of your life – these four years are entirely about changing and evolving into who you are supposed to be. It will shape the rest of your life. We figure out what we want, and what we don’t. We learn to decipher what’s right and what’s wrong, and we learn to accept things that are different. Change will always happen, whether you want it to or not. But you have to change in order to grow. What matters is if you’re willing to accept who you are going to be, and I can promise you, once you finally find out, the change will all be worth it.