(43) The First Day of the Rest of My Life

Thumps of loud music echo across the hall from the door to the Senior caff, as I reach a sea of moving, sweating bodies in the intersection down the hall. The music seems to be bragging that those fortunate enough to be seniors are sitting idly in their own cafeteria, listening to their own kind of music, while everyone else is forced to fight their way through this mob to their next classes. As I mournfully watch what is in front of me, I see a hundred confused faces grouped together, in clumps, all rolling their eyes at each other’s impatience, but continuing to slam each other with backpacks, as they attempt to create a gap in the tangle. I throw myself in, having no other choice than being late to my next class, and immediately I feel hands on the back of my T-shirt, elbows are thrust against my arms, and my face hits several backpacks in front of me. The need for a larger high school has never been so great.

Finally I reach the end of the swarm. I almost seem to stumble out of it, finally able to move freely, and breathe my own air. Quickly finding my American History room, I enter through the door just as the bell rings, and slide instantly into the seat Britney has saved for me. I allow my backpack to easily slide off my shoulders onto the floor next to me and cross my legs in my Jean skirt under my desk, as my new teacher begins to introduce a year of studying America.

“Welcome to American History,” he says with a smile. He’s an older gentleman with pepper-gray hair and small framed glasses that are perched on his rather pink snout. He’s pleasantly plump and seems to sweat immensely under the white button down and tie he’s wearing. He’s the type of person that must take a lot of air out of the environment.
“This year, we will be studying our beloved country, its background, its struggles, its fight for independence.” He drones. As I grip the sides of my desk, I can feel myself trying to go back to sleep, my body not used to waking up at 7 o’clock in the morning. Well actually, 6:30 in the morning, seeing how Charlotte had woken me up before 7, calling to make sure I was going to wear my knee-length Jean skirt today so that she wasn’t going to be the only one. I now glance around the room, my eyes half closed, realizing Jeff Waters and his rather obnoxious friends are my new classmates as well as the fact that a large majority of the girl population in this room and most likely the whole school are all wearing knee-length Jean skirts. Welcome back to Darien High.

And then, he says it. “Class, this is your JUNIOR year. This year is your most IMPORTANT year of high school, and it is NOT GOING TO BE EASY.” I glare at him with hatred, as my palms start to sweat and my heart sinks under my violet T-shirt. He had to say it, every adult has to say it. Every older person I encounter has to ask me what college I want to go to, and finds a need to emphasize how “hard but significant” this upcoming year is going to be. As if I don’t already know that! They don’t realize that this has been what I’ve thought about all summer, every day, and every night. This is the reason why my sister had to practically beat on me to get me out bed this morning, and why for the first year of my entire schooling experience, I didn’t take the time to run to Staples to fill each carefully chosen color coordinated notebook with neat stacks of white lined paper and precisely inscribed dividers. In fact, I was so anti-school this summer, I didn’t even go school shopping for a first day of school outfit! I figured out what I was wearing this EXACT MORNING!

This moment, of lecturing, of note-taking, of sitting still as the morning’s first rays of light are pouring throughout the four walls of this room while most of my summer friends from other towns are still sleeping among the layers of their own beds has been what I have dreaded returning to for the past month, because after this year, my life is never going to be the same.

From this second on, life is no longer fun and games, it’s growing up and being thrown into the harsh world of reality. No longer do I take the classes I enjoy, instead it’s what classes will look good on my applications. Sincere charity is going to be swapped with what community service will look best on my papers. Weekends of partying with friends are now going to transform into eternal nights of studying for SATs. Every test will count, every painstaking note will benefit, and every grade will explain my future. The best way to define this year is plain and simple torture.

Even though these ten months invoke fear through out my whole soul, it’s really not just my junior year of high school that frightens me. No, see after this year, it just all goes downhill. First it’s the applying for colleges, then the getting into college, figuring out a career, hopefully not too soon but nevertheless after that is getting married, then having kids, and then, BAM! I’m going to be a full-fledged, responsibility-filled, PTA meeting-attending adult who finds their joy in their kids and reminisces about the times when they were the age I am now. I can feel the very drops of my youthfulness being sucked right out of me with each second ticking away from the black-rimmed clock on the wall. I’m only sixteen, I’m not ready for all of this!

As Mr. Carnegie continues to go on and on about what is expected for all of us this year, I realize that I can’t hide from these facts anymore. Like it or not, this is my junior year, and if it isn’t this year that forces me to grow up, it will undoubtedly be another year. I can’t be young forever, there isn’t some Never Never Land I can fly to with pixie dust and Peter Pan, and even if they’re was, I would most likely at some point wish to grow up anyway. Though I can’t control the truth about becoming older, I can to some extent control what my future holds. I can work my hardest, give my best to all I do, and plan in advance for what occurs down the road.

As the bell rings once again, signaling that all students are to go to their next class, I sling my bag over my shoulder, wish my teacher a good day, and venture into the halls, more motivated and dedicated to my scholastic achievements than ever before. Once again, as I am thrown into the throng of the intersection, I am determined to never lose focus on my future and make my life all that it can be. I just hope that feeling lasts.