It took a while to get through my head that high school was finished. You wake up and realize it is fall. You aren’t going back to the hallways or classrooms you remember. You won’t be greeted by familiar faces. You won’t be texting the same friends to sit at the table you usually sat at for lunch. There are schedule sharing to see if you have the same classes as someone. You get that feeling like after you left middle school, but it’s different in a way. Since I waited a year to go back to school, I still find myself visiting the past a little too often. The transition going into college can be a struggle, but it is one that everyone goes through.
You know in high school, you are so eager to be Senior. You count down the day till you are the big fish of the pond, but then you look above you and realized the only way to go, is back down and start from the bottom again. The time between high school and college was probably one of the hardest times of my life that I’m still struggling with. I had to decide if school the right choice at the time, or did I need to go to work? I knew I needed to figure something out, so I went to work for the first time in my life. I did not work a day in high school because I wanted to devote myself to my studies. I always felt like if you were attending school you should worry about that, not working. I pushed school off for the next fall semester, and now I am a part time student who works forty hours a week. I always think it’s funny how that turned out.
Your views and morals changed once you step out of that nest you felt so conferrable in. I know they did for me. From the day I graduated till this very moment I am still trying to adjust to the “college life.” It’s not fun in games anymore, it is for real. You’re growing up and nothing is going to change that. That is why I think so many students go through a staged of depression after high school because they do not know what step to take.
I know I did myself, and my friends felt that way as well. I witnessed it about a year after graduation. One of my childhood friends is stuck in this staged of not knowing what he wants to do that he does nothing. I honestly feel like he is stuck in that after high school depression, and he does not know how to find his way out. One of my best girlfriends went straight to being a salary manager at a restraint after high school. She ran herself so crazy worrying about her job that now I feel like she is scared of working again. She got a little bit too much taste of the grownup life, that now she wants to know how it feels like to be a kid.
I accomplished the part of my life that seemed so hard. I look back and see that high school was a walk in the park. The day it really hit was when I saw a good amount of my friends leaving for college. I would see them post pictures on Instagram of their dorm decorations, telling everyone on Facebook about how they were excited for a new journey, and saying their farewells to others. I remember thinking, “Why don’t I feel that excited about moving on with my life?” I thought I was the only one feeling like I was until one day I met up with all my friends. We all had a long talk about how we were all pretty scared to grow up. To leave the “high school” life and face the “college life” or “work life”. We all had the same fears, but realized it was normal. We all had the fear of growing up.
If I could go back at that point of my life I would tell myself, “What you feel is normal. It’s okay if you don’t have all the answers right now. Others feel your pain and are just as scared as you. These struggles are ones you have to go through. It is life.” I learn a lot from others actions and experiences. My best girlfriend is looking into colleges now and enjoying her life as a nineteen year old girl, instead of being miserable at a restaurant. I am putting myself through college on my own. No I am not a full time student as I always hoped to be, but I am in school. I know this is where I want and need to be. If I were speaking to a group of high school graduated I would tell them, “It’s okay if you don’t have all the answers at this very movement. The struggle you feel in your mind is normal, you are not alone. You can do this.”
