Opinion: Why I need another year of high school
Abby Waetcher | Staff Writer
All I want is to leave.
I crave the maturity that college offers, but I have another year stuck in the realm of high school.
All I want is to get into a school eight or more hours away and leave for good.
Yes, maybe, I will endure the journey home for the winter holidays, but that’s it. I’m gone, I’m out, and I won’t be back.
But, isn’t high school supposed to be the best four years of your life?
Well, yes, for some people. But let me make this clear: people are mean here. The atmosphere is toxic. The sky is painted with opportunity, but clouds of judgment obscure our sight. The focus turns to our perception, and it fogs the lens through which high school is supposed to be perceived.
In theory, high school should be the best four years of our life. We have room to experiment and room to fail and room to learn– room to make it our own. But here’s the thing with college, we don’t have to be surrounded by gossip that rules the way we are perceived because it’s simply too big, there are too many people to care, people have grown up there.
And I’m not saying that people don’t grow up in high school, but, boy, people are not mature here. The fact that all I have to do is unlock my phone and go through Snapchat to find that I’ve been ridiculed somewhere on someone’s private story shows that we are not growing up. The fact I care is proof that I am not growing up.
Perhaps I do need another year to figure it out.
Perhaps, I need a season where my lens is focused on clarity and fixated on myself. I need a summer spent uninterested in drama and aloof from the niche that causes me so much anxiety.
I need a normal school year.
I need a year with memories that reflect my experience in an optimistic light. I need to do wildly silly things with friends who care, not about the drama, but me. This last year is destined to be so many things, and we are responsible for making it our own.
Seniors, I envy you, but I must stay here.
We have so much to learn, so much to prepare for. We must burn the bridges between the drama, and mend the ones between ourselves and our sanity. We need this last year.
There’s nothing normal about the time we are currently living in, and that’s what’s going to make this last year interesting. We get to make up things that don’t exist, and people are willing to make it happen. There is a bank of potential waiting to be opened, and all it is is our senior year. One last year to inspire.
One last year to grow up.