What’s it like when you graduate? Where do you go from there? Do you work? Is it still like your current life? Does it feel any different? These are all questions I wonder whenever I realize how much closer I am to graduation then I’ve ever been in the past. It may still be a little while away but sometimes I am kept up all night just thinking about how many questions I need answered before actually leaving and going into the world. These are the last few years of our lives with parental guidance and that means that from graduation on, were alone.
Do you remember being a little 2nd grader with the biggest imagination and dreams possible? I do. I remember always wanting to watch shows staring teenagers and always admiring the teenage girls in my neighborhood thinking that they are so cool. I used to want to be one of them. I would always tell my parents of the thoughts and wishes I had about being a teenager and going to high school and they used to say that by becoming a teenager you are one step closer to going to college which means leaving “mommy and daddy.” That’s when I would back off because of my fear of leaving my parents. Over the years I began to realize that leaving home is just how the life cycle of a human being usually goes and got used to the fact that my parents were one day not going to be down the stairs from me when I needed them. But now that graduation is approaching like rapid fire, I have taken my fear of leaving, back. But, this time instead of making myself frightened about leaving, I use it as a motivation to do better in my school work and go to an amazing college where leaving my parents, won’t be as bad.
Going to college, to me, means becoming an individual in today’s society, and high school are the last few steps to beginning your true life journey. Each day goes by faster and faster and graduation becomes one step closer. As a ninth grader I don’t have to worry so much about which college I’m going to, or where I’m going to be living, yet. But I do have to worry about graduating with a good reputation of grades to get into a good college. So I have set some goals for myself. When I was in elementary and middle school, I struggled with my grades and wasn’t a bad student, grade wise, but I was not trying my best or at my full potential. Toward the end of my eighth grade year I read a book about a girl who was a “straight A student” and was in line to be the valedictorian of her graduating class. This book changed my whole perspective on school and from there on I began to do better in my school work. This is how I realized that going into high school was a huge step and a chance at a clean slat in my grade records. These are the years that all the colleges will look back on and determine whether I am worthy enough for there school.
I have begun to achieve my goal and have a much better average then last year but am still working harder and harder every day to become a better student and young women then I can ever be. I am so glad to be a young achieving high school student, and am now living my wishes of my second grade years. This is what I believe.