[Day 221] Thank your stars

This is my “senior commentary” for the last issue of my school’s paper that I’m going to be an editor for. It’s not coming out for a couple weeks, but I liked it so much I just had to get it out there early. Enjoy.

“Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

-Dylan Thomas

Ever since I read the senior commentaries from last year’s staff, I’ve been trying to decide what I wanted to talk about in my own. I’ve had so many experiences during my agonizingly long four years, both good and bad, and it’s difficult to quantify them in an essay that will hold your interest.

The first thing I want everyone to know is that high school is not the end, it’s the means. If you think high school is going to be the best four years of your life, I feel sorry for you and wish you well later in life. Hollywood may try to glamorize or desecrate the high school experience, but what you have to understand is that it’s just an experience. High school is what I would consider an experience of the dramatic mundane; the paradox of growing up. Most of the time, you’re probably going to hate it here- let’s be honest. But there are moments, albeit few and far between, that either define or destroy you.

But in ten years, it’s not going to matter where you went to high school, who you sat with at lunch, where you shopped for your wardrobe, or how popular you thought you were. High school is a journey, not an adventure, a pot hole, not a road. It’s something that, no matter how much it may suck, is a necessary component of growing up.

As much as my own high school experience has been less than desirable, I can’t say that I wish it had never happened. The awkwardness, ostracism and embarrassment of the past four years have yielded heavily to my current personality, and it’s a personality that I’m beginning to accept. All of the experiences that I’ve had here were necessary components in my maturation.

The second thing I want to make clear is that I’m not unhappy with my experiences here; in fact, I’m rather apathetic. I don’t want to make anyone think that I hated high school, because that’s not exactly true. Rather, I regarded it with a strong dislike for the majority of the time. But it’s important to note that I didn’t hate it.

I can’t hate high school, because I met some of my best friends here, I grew as a writer and a student exponentially, and I was given the chance to compete in speech and debate. Today, because of all the these factors, I have a best friend who is going into the Marines, three finished novels, a new hunger for history, and an invitation to Forensics Nationals in Kansas City, Missouri, this summer. All of these things directly stemmed from circumstances I encountered here, in high school, and for that alone, I have to give FMHS its due credit.

With this in mind, I’m not going to pretend that my time here has been particularly fun. I’ve bombed tests, lost friends, been called names not suitable for print and struggled with dangerously low self esteem. I’ve always considered myself low on the social ladder, and rightly so. The majority of people I’ve been around these past four years haven’t exactly liked me, and I’ll be honest; the feelings were mostly mutual.

But none of that negativity changes my original assertion: high school is necessary.

During high school, I wrote my first novel, and then my second and third. During high school, I fell in and out of love. During high school, I learned how to deal with people and deal with myself. During high school, my parents got divorced, I entered into therapy and I got my first kiss.

High school was not the beginning of my life, and it is certainly not the end. I don’t expect to be coming back to many reunions, because I just don’t see the point in trying to relive these experiences again. That’s why they’re called experiences; you’re meant to move on. Who you are during high school is not who you’re going to be the rest of your life (at least, I hope not), but it gives you somewhere to start.

Confucius once said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Our lives are the journey, and high school is the first, single step. So don’t dawdle, and make the most of your time. Because although this may not be the best experience, and it may not always be fun, why waste four years of your life being miserable.