BRISTOL, Connecticut, U.S.A. — I hate when time flies by.
Everyone says senior year is the best. You’re at the top of the school, have senior privileges, have your last prom, and last of all, the year ends in graduating and jumping out into the real world on your own.
They never said it goes by so fast. I can’t even savor a moment before it’s gone, two or three months in the past.
As the days near for my high school graduation, my emotions become mixed; I am filled with fear and excitement.
Day by day, I become impatient for the opportunity to burst out of this hellhole! I have dealt with 12 years of school with its 7-hour days, five days a week, 180 days-a-year crap. I can finally leave all of this with graduation!
It’s the moment I’ve been waiting for… and I am afraid.
The more I say it, the stupider it sounds. I am afraid of what lies ahead of me – the future.
I have a future, a plan of what I will do once I step off that stage. I am going to Central Connecticut State University to become a child psychologist.
It sounds easy, but there is so much to worry about! What happens if my plans fail? What happens if I don’t succeed?!
I will be an adult, relying on myself and my own thoughts and decisions, with no high school walls to protect me any more. It’s life I guess. I’ll get over it.
In the next month, I must accomplish a great task – preparing myself for the real world and creating a person that can support herself, mentally, physically and economically.
Yeah, I’ll still have my friends and family there, but, well, after graduation you’re pretty much on your own, making your own decisions.
This will be one challenge for me. I love challenges, so I await the ones that lie ahead of me, but I also fear them.
In one month I must walk across that stage filled with determination, courage, and confidence, prepared to climb the next step in life: college.
I may not be entirely prepared now, but I still have 30 days left!
Danielle Letourneau is a Reporter for Youth Journalism International.
