There's so much I could say about being a senior this year, but for this article's sake, I'm going to pretend there isn't a pandemic going on outside my door. For months I knew my senior year would eventually end, one way or another, and I'd have to say goodbye to my friends. We live in a small town, so we had almost every class together throughout all of high school. For some, all of middle school. I knew it would be difficult for all of us to part ways, or at least not see each other as often as we used to.
New people would soon enter our lives and our tight-knit circle wouldn't be as tight anymore. We all knew it. So I spent all of my time senior year trying to take it all in, but at the same time, trying to distance myself so the blow wouldn't hurt as bad. Classic flight response.
Regardless of my coping habits, shoving my closest friends away revealed space for new friends that I hadn't anticipated. The next thing I knew, I was bonding with the sophomore girls in my weights class. Complaining about having to physically exert ourselves turned into TikTok dances, singing songs that were on the radio in the weight room, and listening to their latest drama. I found myself excited to see them the next day to bring a smile to their face somehow, and I adored giving them advice. Our connections weren't strong or longlasting either, really. These things didn't really matter though; it was the small impact they made on my day that slowly compounded into one big ball of love.
I could say the same about my AP biology class. A class of five seniors who really didn't want to be there turned into my favorite hour of the day. It was my last class of the day, and I knew I could count on them to put me in a good mood with good vibes and goofing off even if the rest of my day was terrible. If you're reading this Mrs.Vonbecker, I'm truly sorry.
When you go to school every single day for years, you fall into a pattern, which is the sort of the idea of systemized learning. You go to the same classes every day with the same people. You sit by the same group of people every day at lunch, oftentimes in the same designated spots. Those are "your" people. But once you break that pattern and get a chance to look back on it, you see that all of the supporting characters in your story ended up carrying more weight in your heart than you originally expected.
Which sucks, honestly. There I was, readying myself to say goodbye to all eight or so friends in August, but it's the acquaintances that are really getting to me now. Hopefully, I was a supporting character in someone else's story, and they just don't realize it yet.
