Freshman year starts in fall and feels like it too.
We enter campus nervous, with a new backpack, maybe even a pair of new shoes and the air crisp with possibility. We make friends and get used to high school, and everything seems cool and refreshing.
Sophomore year still feels like autumn. A chill breeze follows everywhere you go, almost as if hinting at the coming years. But you have a jacket on, and you’re not a junior yet. You start hearing about college and what senior year is like.
Some friends start to change. Some leaves turn red.
You lose others. Some leaves fall.
When winter comes with junior year, you can tell.
You worry about it in the fall, but once it’s here, it’s just life. You get used to it. It doesn’t snow in winter – you can handle more stress than you thought. It gets pretty cold, but you have a jacket, and you might be too busy to think about the weather.
And then spring.
Senior year.
First semester still feels like winter – college applications. Who knew spring could be so cold? You’re still too busy to be freezing, but you know that if you take time to sit down, you’ll shiver from the stress. It’s easy to stress about what you have to do when you’re not doing it. Trees are still leafless, but I guess that’s possible with our weird weather nowadays.
Guess we know what happened on groundhog day.
You submit all your essays over winter break.
It’s second semester – all you have to do is wait.
Your first thought is impatience. In just a few months, you’ll know what college you’re going to, or what job you’re going to take. What will happen after high school, what will happen after you move past these past four years of your life. You can’t wait – but you do.
Your second thought — you’d forgotten how nice it felt to not be busy. The spring sun on your skin.
You start reconnecting with some old friends – fallen leaves – from autumn. It’s occurring to all of them (and you) that you might never see them again.
Everyone’s changed since autumn.
They’re wearing less outer layers, now that the weather’s getting warm. People are more themselves – flowers are blooming.
Leaves are growing back green.
They’re different – not just in haircuts and style – grown as friends, people.
Before you know it, you know what you’ll do next year – what college you’ll go to, what job you plan to take.
You plan to continue talking to some friends, keep some leaves, pick some flowers, keep parts of your high school life.
You bloom.
And you’re ready for summer.
