Looking back on the past 126,227,808 seconds of my existence, high school wasn’t so bad. Actually, make that 94,670,856 seconds, since my first year of high school was spent entirely online.
I was one of the lucky ones during the COVID-lockdown year who didn’t feel impacted by the virus much, considering I was already living like a vampire that avoided contact with the Sun, mirrors, and people. My freshman year, as a result, was somewhat uneventful despite the world being very eventful. Waking up five minutes before class was a nice perk, and I’ve made new friends despite the obvious barriers in communication that the pandemic presented. Looking back, I’m not sure why I worried so much about being a high school student after surviving middle school.
Sophomore year was when I finally familiarized myself with the school, as I finally sat in classrooms rather than in front of my chromebook. I joined clubs, got kicked out of clubs. I annoyed teachers, but some of them liked me in the end. I was also exposed to high school literature for the first time and was surprised by the common themes of rape, dysfunctional families, past traumas, death by poison, death by leukemia, death by giant boulder pushed off by kids trapped on an island, and general bad things happening to characters in books. Despite the macabre themes, most of the works that I read were fairly entertaining and sometimes truly inspiring. This year was also my first exposure to AP classes and the pressure that comes with these classes. AP Chemistry, in particular, was fascinating to learn, fun to do experiments, and absolutely crushing when I only scored 50% on tests. Still, I did well on the AP exam so the class did a great job preparing me for harder coursework. Overall, sophomore year went pretty well.
Junior year is when people start to talk about the future as if it’s right in front of them rather than some distant object. I was also swept up by the zeitgeist of college climbing and started worrying about the future. I followed the normal college climb procedure of doing more extracurricular activities, joining more organizations, taking more AP classes, competing in more events, and always striving for more. It would’ve been ironic if we read Macbeth in junior year and learned about the dangers of “vaulting ambition,” but alas, doing more this year definitely helped me achieve success later on. Despite the blur of doing more, junior year was the best year of my high school career because I finally had a clear goal to move towards.
Senior year for me was a storm. I was flooded by college applications to write and all the anxiety that comes with that during the first half of the year, but everything eventually settled down as the eye of the storm encircled me. Problem is, where do you go when you are surrounded on all sides? Even as this year comes to a close, I still don’t feel ready enough for college. I worry about balancing independent life with studying and socializing; I worry about being away at the Big Apple and being on the other side of this continent, and I worry about how to prepare for life after college. It would be nice to just stay here in the eye, but this time of calm will eventually pass. I will have to again endure the tempest that comes with growing up. It’s a fait accompli, but weather it I shall.
Regarding regrets, I’m not Edith Piaf so I can’t firmly declare that “Non, je ne regrette rien.” If there’s anything I could change about the past, I would spend more time building relationships with people and rebuilding the friendships that have ended. But, even if I had made those choices, I would regret something else. And regretting nonexistent regrets would, indeed, be a truly regretful waste of time.
