As my freshman year in college is coming to an end, I think about how different my life was at this time last year. I was stressing about who I was asking to prom and fitting in my dress. I was upset because my mom put a picture of myself that I hated in my graduation party invitations. I was feeling lonely because I was one of the few girls in my friend group that wasn't dating someone. I was anxious about leaving my familiar town in just a few months to attend a school hours away.
Everyone will tell you that the things that seem so detrimental now won't matter in the long run. (My dad told me the same thing while I was bawling about the picture of myself with my graduation invites). It's easier to say once you're on the outside. I understand that in that moment those types of things are everything. That was my life then and I didn't know anything else at that point.
I didn't know that I wasn't ever going to see my prom date again after it was over. I didn't know that no one would remember what senior picture I used for my graduation invites. I didn't know that I was going to pass pre-calculus and my life wasn't going to end. I didn't know that the one boy I spent so many nights crying over wouldn't even cross my mind by the next year. I didn't know that not having a boyfriend at the time would turn out to be for the better. I didn't know that all of this happened for a reason because there was a bigger picture.
I'm at the point where I have seen the bigger picture. For you, it is still in the future. Regardless of what I tell you, you most likely will stress over the same things that I did. I wouldn't have listened to anyone that told me that "it gets better" when I broke things off with the boy I'd been talking to for all of senior year a month before prom. Trust me, it gets better. But that is how life works. You go through hard times, learn from the experience and reflect on how little it really meant in the good times. No piece of advice will help you skip any steps.
At this point in the letter, you are probably thinking that this is literally the worst article about senior year you've ever read. But it's the truth. I read my fair share of articles addressed to high school seniors and still cried over really stupid shit, didn't cherish the time I had there because I was crying over stupid shit and now I'm writing an article about it. Again, that is life.
When you are sitting in your prison cell of a dorm room next year and lay back on your school provided mattress that could actually be marketed as a cinder block, the happy memories that fill your head will be the times that you spent with your close friends. And that is it. I still forget who I took to prom sometimes. I guess the only good advice I can give in this article is to know that all of the things that are happening to you are happening for reasons that you will soon understand. Whoever said that high school was the best years of your life was wrong. They are simply some of the many best years of your life.
