It’ll be so different.

Well, here we are. Graduating definitely feels like one of those moments that you always knew was going to happen someday, but never truly pictured the day would come. I don’t know if anyone else ever had those thoughts in their younger grades, where logically, you knew school would come to an end eventually, but never actually comprehended what that meant. I mean we have been going to school for as long as we can remember, so it makes sense that it feels like a crashing wave every time we realize that after today, our lives are taking a huge turn. Even for those of us who will continue schooling with college or other means of more education, we won’t have our parents and teachers holding our hands and telling us exactly what to do and how to do it. Because now we’re like actual adults, (which is another one of those things I knew would have to happen someday, but never really thought I would see the day) and now that we are adults we have to be like – responsible. For ourselves. And I’m sure some people will be better than others at the whole ‘independent’ thing. I consider myself to be pretty independent as far as being able to take care of myself, but when it comes to going out and working and coexisting in the real world with other people without my parents or sister or bestfriend right by my side… not so great at the independence thing yet. However I’ve known most of the people here in front of me since primary or elementary school, and I know how incredibly capable we all are at adapting to change. Whether it’s a worldwide virus, or losing an entire wing of our school, all the unexpected twists and turns highschool has put us through has made us ready for anything. 

Covid being one of those big twists has taught me many things that I didn’t expect to learn in highschool. For example, not going to school for a long time is not as great as I thought. At first it was like “Oh hell yeah, no school for two weeks!” Two years later sitting at a cold -but sanitized- desk with an uncomfortable mask and even less of a social life than I had before, I realized how much I’d taken for granted a normal highschool experience. I just thought it was a given, but that was the second lesson Covid taught me. Nothing is guaranteed. Even the things you automatically assume are going to happen because it’s just one of those normal things that are supposed to happen. Like being able to go to high school full time for all four years, or being able to walk into your science class on Monday morning because all the walls are definitely there. So as terribly annoying as the entire pandemic was, it taught some big lessons that I wish we didn’t have to learn right in the middle of high school, but I do believe we’re all stronger because of it. In fact I think most of what’s learned in high school isn’t even the subjects being taught in class, but the experience of being a highschooler in general.

Do you think I’ll remember what cosine means? Absolutely not, I already don’t remember what it means and I just finished my fourth year of math. But something I will remember are all the whispered jokes between the members of Concert Band in which the director pretends not to hear so he doesn’t have to address the fact that they aren’t always the most school-appropriate jokes. Another thing I won’t remember is pretty much anything I learned sophomore year. Maybe it was all the disinfectant spray and hand sanitizer that screwed with my memory but that one year is a complete blur to me. Yet I will remember all the mornings I would pick up my favorite car buddy and speed to the Rusty Lantern before school started so that I could buy us donuts for breakfast and fill up my gas tank so that I could actually make it to work that afternoon. And of course there will always be some things we’ll remember that were taught in the classroom, but most of the memories we leave with today are the ones that come from all the moments in between the school lessons.

Maybe it was that one time you made your teacher genuinely laugh, and not just the ‘teacher chuckle’, but their real person laugh. Or maybe it was that time you cried in the bathroom stall over something that 5 years from now you’ll think was the silliest thing ever. Either way it’s the moments that you made an impact on someone or the impact they made on you that you’ll remember over any science formula or math equation. Though I am excited to make new memories and have tons of new experiences, these past couple weeks of school have really made me realize how much I’m going to miss the people I’ve grown up with. And I don’t just mean personal friends, because of course we’ll all stay in touch with our very close friends, but more than that I’ve really started to realize how much of a unit the class of 2023 is. We don’t have a huge school where every grade has hundreds of kids in it, and beside the handful of students that have moved in and out of our district throughout the years, a lot of us have been in RSU4 since day one, or really early on. And I know that besides our friends we’re not all necessarily close to each other in our grade, but the fact that we grew up together remains the same. I don’t mean that we all know everyone in our grade super well, or that we’re all friends but I do know how much of a comfort it has been to step into a new classroom knowing that the people you’ve known for years will also be there. Going from elementary to middle and then middle to high school we all know the famous teacher speech of; “It’s going to be a lot different next year, the teachers up there expect a lot more work, responsibility and maturity and goofing off will not be tolerated.” Though we all learned that the teachers seemed to have exaggerated that a bit, it was still one of the scariest speeches they gave. I was picturing highschool as boot camp the way they made it sound. But we all moved on to our next grade, with a whole new set of teachers and topics and other intimidating things. The thing that stayed consistent throughout was the people around us. All those built up summer nerves would quickly dissipate once I glanced around a strange classroom and saw the faces of the people I’ve known since I was little. Even when put into a class where I had no friends, just seeing the room filled with people I at least know has always been a great reassurance that everything would be okay, because we’ll all get through it together just like every other year. That’s probably the most daunting thing about leaving this school and starting a new chapter. I won’t have the comfort of knowing that the 80 other kids I’ve known forever are going through the same actions as I am. Because after today our paths are not going to be anywhere near the same as each other anymore. We’re done mandatory schooling guys. Our lives from here on out are going to be wherever we make of them. Class of 2023 I honestly wish you the best of luck. And thank you all for being such a comfort of familiarity without even knowing it.

“Two paths diverged. Pulaski County, Arkansas. 2022.” by BradSimsPhoto is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.