Dear Senior,

Senior. That word in itself has so much meaning. You’ve waited eighteen long years and gone through 12 years in school in order to finally get the long-sought-after title of “Senior”. Everything this year has been labelled with that word: “senior”, as an adjective to make it seem all that more important, all that more special. When I was at that point in my life, it seemed that 'senior' was synonymous with the beginning of the end of what was supposedly the “best four years” of my life. Thankfully, I had always known that there was more to life than high school. I was supposed to be emotional; I was supposed to be nostalgic for my childhood; this was what senior year was all about. In some ways I was. Sure, I was going to miss my friends, how often I saw them, the fun times we had hanging out together. It’s true, I was going to miss all the extracurriculars I was involved in and the people that made being in the arts so special and helped craft my talent. But by the time mid-April came around, I wasn’t emotional or nostalgic anymore. I was ready to graduate and get all of it over with.

I was confused. I was confused why I didn’t seem to feel the way everyone else did about the “beginning of the end”. I didn’t see 12th grade as the “end”, I saw it as a beginning to real life. I saw it as the beginning of a new opportunity for adventure and reinvention in college. It’s not that I had a terrible time in high school, I have many great memories of those four years, it’s more so that I was ready to move on. I was just over the whole thing.

So if you’re a high school senior who’s feeling this way, I promise you, you’re not alone. There’s life after you sing the fight song one last time and walk across the stage. In 6 months, high school will feel very far away, fleeting memories that will be replaced with new experiences and new friends. If you feel like you’ve grown out of high school, that's not a bad thing. It’s actually a very mature thing. Just know that it’s all going to be okay.

Sincerely,

Someone Who’s Been There.