Some More Thoughts

So, since I wrote a blog post early on about my overall thoughts and feelings about the senior project experience, I thought it may be cool to share one about how they have changed or new information since we are all in the last stages of our projects.

I think the biggest thing I have realized from being on the senior project is how ready I am to be done with highschool and I don’t mean this in a rude way of like “I’m done with this place and I am never coming back!” I am just ready for something else. I’m tired. I’m too old for this (highschool) anymore. And maybe “too old” isn’t even the right phrase, I mean I am 17, I’m graduating early, but I just don’t belong in a highschool setting anymore. I think I’ve gotten too good at the challenges highschool presents whether it’s academically, athletically, or socially. It’s not challenging enough for me anymore. In my mind I am already at that graduation ceremony– I’ve been there for months. I’m ready for something different. And all that means is that you guys, as teachers and administrators, have done your job. If I felt unprepared or like I wanted to keep doing highschool then I wouldn’t have gotten the full lesson highschool is supposed to teach or fully absorbed my preparation for the real world. You can’t stay in highschool forever in a literal sense, and I don’t want to be one of those adults who just talks about their “glory days” and has never let anything from highschool go. Your life doesn’t stop after highschool, it doesn’t stop after college, it doesn’t stop once your 30 or 40 or 50 or even older. Life goes on and each decade is another new era (like the Taylor Swift’s eras tour! I am so sorry I made this joke like this is such a dumb joke) and you have got to keep going and changing. That doesn’t mean you have to forget about the past completely, it just means there’s not a point of dwelling on the past and wishing you could go back to a different period of your life.

I also just think that often times the adults who act like highschool was the best time of their life are in a way lying. I would say overall my highschool experience has been really good and way above average in terms of my personal feelings, but also above average from all the different things I have gotten to try. I don’t think at a big school I would have gotten as good of academic classes or to play multiple sports or the chance to come out of my shell and be more outgoing. But I mean, I don’t know this for sure and sometimes I do wonder how things would have shaken out had I gone to a different highschool. One thing is for sure though, I wouldn’t be sitting in the grand hall of the Missouri History Museum writing this post, I wouldn’t be working 30 hours a week for the museum, meeting high profile humanities people, or offered a part time job for pay while I go to college. But even within my really good highschool experience I have had moments where I just feel really awful, including the beginning of senior year from like August until I started feeling better again in November. I think the people who are still stuck in their highshool mindset neglect to mention or have purposely blocked out completely the memories of how awful highschool can feel sometimes. One of my favorite things about “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (“BTVS”) is that yes, Buffy has to fight all these actual demons, but at the same time she has to have this struggle with the regular metaphorical demons of highschool all while having to conceal this really insane secret (that she is the slayer) that causes a ton of inner turmoil. And yeah, I haven’t fought vampires or saved the world in highschool, but I have had to slay plenty of my own personal demons. And in a way, I think that’s what highshool or even just life is about– it’s about encountering these demons or really awful situations, and coming to terms with them, and figuring out someway to fight them off, and they may not go away completely, but there’s things you can do to not stay so attached to them.

It’s very cheesy and I feel like such a little pretentious snot writing this, but I feel like I have become a woman while on this project. Not like in a creepy or weird sense, but in that I am more of an adult now then I was weeks ago. I understand more about the adult world and how it works. I’ve learned that it’s not this mysterious and scary thing like the boogeyman. It’s sort of like highschool, except you don’t have to sit at a desk all day (well I guess depending on your job you may have to sit at a desk all day). And I am just excited to keep experience this new part of my life for the next few years during college, and then see what happens after that, which is something that I think is really beautiful and I am fully confident in myself that I am capable of taking the full plunge into adulthood because I have already gone into the shallow end, and even though it might be scary at times I am gonna be perfectly alright.

I apologize for the length of this and I will be seriously trying to limit myself in these last few posts I have to do, but I will say, this stuff does come from my own head and heart and I think that should account for something in these matters.