Senior Moments: Reflections on Graduating From High School

As I write this, the internal countdown that’s been ticking away inside me for the past four years is five hours away from running out. In just five hours, I’ll be one person in a line of more than 100, in a blue gown that becomes suffocating after 10 minutes, the ugliest hat I’ve ever worn and so many decorative things around my neck I feel like a Christmas tree. In five hours, my senior class will be walking down a dressed-up gym in two rehearsed lines that conjure up the pastel images and rhyming stanzas of the children’s book “Madeline.” In five hours, I’ll be handed a piece of paper in front of the friends and family of all my classmates, and be sent off towards whatever’s next with a handshake.

I don’t know that I’ve fully realized what’s happening yet. I took all my final tests, handed in all my textbooks, cleaned out the locker a part of me has been living in for the past four years, but it feels like I’m just watching all of this happen from outside myself. There are two sides inside of me warring. There’s the side that’s ready to be done with high school and all of the not-quite-kid but also not-quite-adult irritation that comes along with it, but there’s another part of me that’s always been needlessly sentimental. It’s the part of me that can’t throw away a single card or written note I’ve ever received and aches a little at garage sales, watching belongings float away. That feeling tells me that even if these weren’t the best four years of my life, it’s still the end of something big, something that formed me. Since my freshman year, a majority of my life was in some way tied to that building and the people in it. I left my mark on it, and in return, it left its mark on me. Even if I want to dismiss it all with a “it’s just high school,” I know the time I spent there will have an impact on the decisions I make in the next few years. The person I become.

The next few hours are going to feel really big, and I’m realizing that feeling is a scale of my own experience. In reality, graduations happen every year, over and over, for thousands of people. I’m not the first person to graduate, and I definitely won’t be the last, so why does it feel that way? It’s a testament to how little I’ve actually experienced so far, how much growing up I still have to do. I can only guess — and hope — this feeling won’t cease to exist in the future, but will latch itself on to new experiences, new firsts, and this one instance will fade away until it’s just a landmark in my mind.

Even if my high school graduation won’t loom as large a week, a month or a year from now, at this moment, it’s a reason to mark the calendar, circle the date in a bright color and fill the box up with little scribbled stars. I’m excited to graduate. I’m excited to exist in a way I never have before, and I’m excited to see what comes next.

Mia Timlin is a recent graduate of Notre Dame Regional High School. She's lived in Cape Girardeau for five years and loves reading, dancing, watching movies and listening to music by The Beatles.