I will miss high school. Actually, that’s a lie. I will miss high school only to a certain extent. I’ll miss the school lunch (…yeah), the laughter that plagues my friends and me whenever one of us says something funny, and the simple routine of getting up, going to school for eight hours, going back home, and doing homework for a monotonous three to four hours. All the while, I don’t ever wanna think about high school again. The people I dread seeing every single day, the procrastination, and the feeling of inferiority I feel every couple weeks made me want to give it all up. There’s just something conflicting about a student’s relationship with school. School can be a great time if you have easy classes and a bunch of friends, but when you lack both, school is literal hell. 

For the most part, my actions made me enjoy school even less and less as time went by. I didn’t do anything too extreme (strict parents) but from time to time, I come to the realization that the countless choices I’ve made over the past four years make me regret and doubt myself a lot. I wish I could’ve done things differently along my path but, there isn’t much faith and trust one should put into their 14 year old selves. I wish I could’ve participated in clubs and activities way more than I did. I’ve only done two clubs out of my four years in high school and for both, I joined this year. COVID, of course, comes into a factor in my lack of attendance in school activities, but nonetheless, I had freshman and half of sophomore year. For my freshman and sophomore year, I was too distracted with literally the most irrelevant things that I don’t even care about anymore. It’s so cringey to think about it today but I digress. I wish I didn’t buy and eat hot cheetos every single day before the clock could even hit 10 o’ clock my freshman and sophomore year. I wish I had established an actual support group in 10th grade when I felt so abandoned by everyone. Although I enjoyed its simplicity, I wish I could just erase ninth and tenth grade as a whole from my brain from how stupid life was.

Now, I have to worry about what college I want to go to in the span of two to three years, how to do taxes, maintain a healthy balance between school and work, and many more stressful things. Life won’t be the same anymore and I can’t change that. I can only move on because if I don’t, like Ms. Plascencia likes to say, I’ll be in chaos and whatnot. 

I can only hope that at the next stage of my life I can abide by my own terms and maintain stability. Nothing is set in stone and I can only push myself out of my comfort zone to actually do the best I can.