I woke up this morning, a funny taste in my head...
I'm graduating from high school in about five hours.
I've been vacillating on this issue for pretty much the entire year. I was excited as hell to be a senior and enjoy the privileges that came with it when I first started the year, but I was quickly overwhelmed by the college application process and my responsibilities to school, friends, family, extracirriculars, and my future. It was a ridiculous time. I only really settled down from all of that in mid-May, which is when I truly began wishing for the end of the school year. I wanted to move away, goddammit! It was time for me to be independent, off in the big wide world (or, uh, rural Ohio), make mistakes, learn stuff, fall in love, make friends, and enjoy a full and smooth existence for all eternity.
Now it's time for me to crawl back under to covers and turn the clock back ten years.
Today, I'm not cheerful about finally leaving the morons in the dust. When I'm at school, that's all I can think about, but school's been over for several days now and I've realized that it was never really about them. When I go home, they cease to bother me on any important level. At home, I have my own world, which I've constructed for myself over the course of eighteen years of identity crises and adventures. I have my badass room, full of knicknacks which mean nothing to everyone but me; I have my parents, with whom I have a flowing and mostly amicable routine; I have friends who will hang out with me for days on end and have a newly uncovered memory or old inside joke to rehash every hour. I have books, and pets, and a DVR full of shows I haven't watched yet, and a car, and a life. I know how to get anywhere from anywhere (in Stratford). I know who I can depend on to keep me safe in times of bad judgement (ahem) and who will leave me by myself all night.
Right now, I'm thinking about all of this, and it's storming, and my birds are cuddling, and Indigo Girls have come up on the Graduation Day mix I made, and all I can think about is how comfortable and safe I am right now, and will I ever feel this way again? Now comes the scary-ass world. Now comes bills and kids and friends who die in car crashes.
I will now readily admit that I'm terrified of going off and losing what I have, but I know that if I don't, I'll lose it all anyway. Everyone else is leaving to make new lives for themselves, and I couldn't be more proud of them. I can only hope that I can grow whatever genitalia is necessary to boost my bravery to a level at which it becomes possible for me to be happy in a whole new life. And I know I'll get there. But right now, all I am is a freaked-out eighteen-year-old kid. And that's okay with me.
I've been vacillating on this issue for pretty much the entire year. I was excited as hell to be a senior and enjoy the privileges that came with it when I first started the year, but I was quickly overwhelmed by the college application process and my responsibilities to school, friends, family, extracirriculars, and my future. It was a ridiculous time. I only really settled down from all of that in mid-May, which is when I truly began wishing for the end of the school year. I wanted to move away, goddammit! It was time for me to be independent, off in the big wide world (or, uh, rural Ohio), make mistakes, learn stuff, fall in love, make friends, and enjoy a full and smooth existence for all eternity.
Now it's time for me to crawl back under to covers and turn the clock back ten years.
Today, I'm not cheerful about finally leaving the morons in the dust. When I'm at school, that's all I can think about, but school's been over for several days now and I've realized that it was never really about them. When I go home, they cease to bother me on any important level. At home, I have my own world, which I've constructed for myself over the course of eighteen years of identity crises and adventures. I have my badass room, full of knicknacks which mean nothing to everyone but me; I have my parents, with whom I have a flowing and mostly amicable routine; I have friends who will hang out with me for days on end and have a newly uncovered memory or old inside joke to rehash every hour. I have books, and pets, and a DVR full of shows I haven't watched yet, and a car, and a life. I know how to get anywhere from anywhere (in Stratford). I know who I can depend on to keep me safe in times of bad judgement (ahem) and who will leave me by myself all night.
Right now, I'm thinking about all of this, and it's storming, and my birds are cuddling, and Indigo Girls have come up on the Graduation Day mix I made, and all I can think about is how comfortable and safe I am right now, and will I ever feel this way again? Now comes the scary-ass world. Now comes bills and kids and friends who die in car crashes.
I will now readily admit that I'm terrified of going off and losing what I have, but I know that if I don't, I'll lose it all anyway. Everyone else is leaving to make new lives for themselves, and I couldn't be more proud of them. I can only hope that I can grow whatever genitalia is necessary to boost my bravery to a level at which it becomes possible for me to be happy in a whole new life. And I know I'll get there. But right now, all I am is a freaked-out eighteen-year-old kid. And that's okay with me.