You know the years coming to a close when nearly half of your highschool friends on facebook have changed their default picture to some sharp stud shot taken on prom night. Don’t pretend like you have no idea what I’m talking about, you got the same notification that 27+ friends changed their current profile displays. For many the end of the year won’t mean anything, just another summer calling for hibernating, finding mischief, and resuming their usual agendas. But there are some of us stepping out of this cycle, and although I hate to admit it, all the redundant clichés and sentimental jargon will hold true come time for the class of 08 seniors to leave the nest.
It doesn’t take flipping through yearbook commentaries to inspire such an epiphany- and by god how I hate trying to find the right words to jot down to every single classmate. I wish it were as easy as HAGS or something short sweet, and obnoxiously elementary. I don’t know what’s harder, trying to come up with something substantial to leave behind in a yearbook of some random classmate, or trying to make an everlasting, mind-blowing goodbye imprint on a the backpage of a good friend’s yearbook I’m pretty sure both of those books will collect dust in some old forgotten shelf 10 years from now anyway.. And you know whats even more frustrating- that before the sharpie or ink pen has dried on your last comment, the owner of said yearbook feels obliged to immediately read your input. Right there, in front of you. Just pure awkwardness as you try to decipher their facial expressions as they read it to themselves. Then you completely try to avoid eye contact afterwards and move on with whatever lecture you were previously ignoring.
Funny what 4 years will amount to. Freshmen, sophmore, junior, senior. Their just small steps in this massive climb of a staircase. But I’m glad I took those steps with some pretty special people in my life, people, that no matter where they will go in the upcoming years, will always have held some influence in my life. “We are the sum of all the people we’ve ever met”- it’s a quote from a no-nothing film called Fierce People, and I’m not even sure if I’ve interpreted the quote in the same context the film intended, but I’d like to believe that it shares some relevance to our high school years.
Whether it’s the teachers (doesn’t take an overly enthusiastic learner to admit it), our coaches, our friends, our not-so great friends, kids we absolutely can’t stand, or the wallflowers in the back of the classroom we barely notice- we’ve drawn something from all of them.
