Dear present,
I think I’m in a state of ambivalence about how fast things are changing. It’s like all my colleagues around me are running towards the future and I just want to stay in the present. It feels so surreal to think that in just 61 days I will officially be a graduate of Forest Hills Central High School.
And I don’t think I’m ready to accept that truth hanging over my head.
I don’t think I’m ready to accept that in just 54 days I’ll no longer be a high school student, but a college freshman.
I don’t know if I’m ready for that. I can’t imagine leaving the place where most of my transformative schooling took place. I don’t know if I’m ready to start the next chapter of my life with all the memories I’ve made here.
I don’t know if everything is ready to change.
I’m not ready for everyone to start the next chapter of their lives.
I’m not ready for everyone to be just a phone call or text away.
I’m not ready for my parents to officially take on the title of “empty nester.”
I’m not ready for my sister to go to medical school.
I’m not ready for any of that, and I never will be.
I feel like I was a pebble on the sidewalk my entire senior year of college. I wish my life was always like that.
I’m so scared that my memories here will disappear the moment I graduate. Everything is changing so quickly that I want to keep the footprints I left all over the school there for as long as possible.
“
How ironic that we would receive our graduation gowns on March 13th, the day the entire world shut down.
Even schools are changing in ways I never imagined. By the time I was a freshman in college, the school was undergoing major structural changes. And if that’s not enough to go almost unrecognized, our APUSH teacher and high school principal of 30 years is retiring this year.
Honestly, when I visit, I wonder if FHC is even the same school it once was. No matter how much this building changes, I hope that the impact I have had on this school will remain as a legacy.
I wish everything would stay the same, but I know that one day everything will change. And it’s already happening. I didn’t realize the change in my life until today, when I received my cap and gown.
The day I received my cap and gown, I realized that everything happening around me was no longer an unattainable dream, but rather a lifestyle, a lifestyle that was the gateway to changing every aspect of my life. That was the day I realized it.
And while I’m not ready for those changes, I know that when the day and time come to experience those changes, I will be ready.
Sincerely,
Please give me a present