From the first few steps off the bus, I knew that a new stage in my life sat right in front of me. No longer was I a snot-nosed middle schooler, thinking that high school was oh-so-far away. I remember stepping into the old cafeteria of Paint Branch High School and seeing nothing but brand-new faces, what seemed like thousands of them. After scanning the whole room, I was able to spot my friends all sitting at one table, each of them as wide-eyed as I was. That was my first day in high-school as an anxious freshman.

Jump to today, January 2014. The class of 2K14 enters its last semester as high-school students. Just yesterday, we were young freshmen, looking forward to the Degrassi-like drama of high school, not worrying so much about college, jobs, and prom. We were more focused on who’s wearing what and who’s dating who. Graduation, back then, seemed like something so distant. The idea of not having to wake up and catch the bus early in the morning or take 7 classes a day and splitting up with your childhood friends was such a weird thing to think about at that time. Grade school helped us build social skills while teaching us the importance of growing up.  Now, as seniors, we feel that we are ready to step into a new frontier called the real world. Each and every one of us looks forward to adulthood, having complete control over our lives, however; the thought of not ever getting your childhood back is a hard thing to deal with.

One’s last semester of high-school is an extremely bittersweet time in life. Every single person around you seems even more important to you than they ever were in your last 12 years of school. Knowing that you might never see them again makes you appreciate the times you had with them, whether monumental or a simple hi and bye. However, I feel that high school prepares us for the real world, and we should be prepared for graduation. It’ll be a ceremony full of tears, but it is necessary in order to progress. We say a goodbye to our dependency on adults as we are now the new contributing members of society.