"Time flies" is somewhat of cliche or overused expression, but until recently I didn't realize the truth in the expression. I can't believe it was almost two years ago when I walked the stage at my high school graduation, wide-eyed and eager to see what college would be like. It truly feels like yesterday.
Sometimes when I sit and think about memories and people from high school, it feels like maybe a year ago at the most, instead of three or four. Even though all this time has passed and I know that I am not the same person I was in high school, paradoxically I still feel pretty much like the same girl I was two or three years ago most of the time. However, after looking at some of the lives of people I went to school with, it quickly brings me back to reality.
Seeing a lot of my former and current classmates doing "adult" things like moving out, working full-time, and even getting engaged, makes me think of how old I am actually starting to get when I really consider it. However, none of those life events really brought the point home until more recently, when I had found out that a former classmate had died at twenty. There was no explanation as to why this had happened, and he wasn't even someone that I had really been friends with or known on a personal level, but this was something that truly shook me to my core. Not only was I deeply saddened, but it felt truly weird and surreal. I have experienced death before, but they had been elderly family members who were ill before passing and although this was deeply saddening, it was also different.
Someone can almost expect a very ill family member to die, or almost feel a sense of relief because they were suffering. There was something incredibly raw and shocking about this death, and I think it was due to the fact that a young life was cut so short, and that is something that nobody really expects it like they would with an ill family member. This was truly something that made me step back and say, "Wow, this is real life," and it made me feel like I was no longer a teenager, but instead, much older. It was truly odd for me to think of how someone I knew and used to sit in class with, was no longer with us.
If I took away anything from this experience, it was ultimately to try to enjoy all my days here, and to at least attempt to live in the moment if possible, because nobody truly know what the future holds, or how much time we even here.
