I can’t say it. Okay, maybe I can. Okay, maybe I can’t. Ugh, I’m scared. I’m excited. I’m nervous. Happy. Wait, I didn’t tell you what’s wrong with me. I have Senior Denial Syndrome. I have one semester left of college. I graduate in only a few months and then I’m off to law school. Where has the time gone?
Why do I feel like it was yesterday that I walked the halls of my high school nervous about starting college, yet I’m about to be walking across the stage in a few months to accept my degree. How? I felt like just yesterday I was a 5-year-old happy-go-lucky kindergartner who cried when she spilled a fruit cup on her dress for a solid half hour. My biggest worry was what coloring book to complete next, or whether my friends and I would play house or teacher after school. I feel like it was just yesterday that I would take spelling tests and get 105s. I may toot my own horn a bit. I was an awesome speller and loved getting the scratch and sniff stickers. I feel like it was just yesterday when I lost my first tooth, or when I was in my first school talent show and chorus concert. It seemed like just yesterday that I was leaving the familiar halls of my elementary school and I was off to be a sixth grader. Just a summer before I was the big fish in the small pond. Now, at 11 years old I was about to be the smallest fish in a huge pond of eighth graders among us (or so I thought). That’s right, because at 11 years old you think 13-year-olds are the biggest, scariest people, yet, a mere two years later you walk into the halls of high school feeling like that teeny weeny fish again, because again, an 18-year-old high school senior is so cool. After all, they are an “adult." Time flies. I took the SAT’s, went to prom, applied to college -- oh right, that…
I’m about to not enter college, but graduate college a few months from today. Unfortunately, due to my career choice I will be going to school for another three years so my education journey is far from over. However, being a college graduate is a big step. At every point in my short 21 years I always thought people older than me were so old and experienced, but at this point in my life I am once again feeling like that small fish. Maybe at each chapter in our lives that’s normal. I could very easily say I’m in denial. Soon enough I will be getting a full time job. I will need to pay actual bills and deal with real world problems. Sometimes I yearn for the days when my biggest concern was coloring and going to dance class. Sometimes I wish I wouldn’t have wished away the time to be an adult because I’m basically here and it’s scary. I’m excited, don’t get me wrong, but there is no manual to being an adult. There’s no manual for anything in life. You really just have to live and learn. I guess it’s okay for me to admit, I have Senior Denial Syndrome. While I’m excited for the chapters ahead in my life journey, there’s a little part of me that wishes some days I could go back to being the little girl waiting for the big yellow bus to come on her first day of kindergarten, not the girl waiting on acceptance letters and bills. Times change, but people don’t. We all want to live a fulfilled life, no matter how old or young we may be. Enjoy college while it lasts -- just like everything else because before you know it, you won’t be that first grader who gets a 105 on her spelling test -- you’ll be the senior about to graduate college.
