Is it embarrassing to miss high school? I never thought so until recently.
Since graduating around eight months ago, most of the conversations I’ve been part of, especially since starting college, have included people saying they hated high school and are more than glad to be out of it. During these chats, I usually stay silent for two main reasons.
- If someone hated high school, I don’t want to seem like I’m rubbing my good experience in their face by sharing mine.
- I don’t want people to think I peaked in high school just because I often find myself missing it.
Even before graduating, during senior year, I heard my peers say they couldn’t wait to leave. I couldn’t have felt more differently. It was especially puzzling because many of the people in my class had been at our school since kindergarten, since it was a K–12 school. I, on the other hand, had only been there since eighth grade. Still, it felt like I had been attending my whole life, and I was afraid to leave.
Hearing everyone else express excitement about graduation, while all I felt was dread, had me question myself. Was I not ready to leave? Maybe not mature enough? After all, I had no real reason to want to go. I had established a place for myself right where I was, and I didn’t want to have to do it all over again somewhere new.
I had my cheerleading team. My tennis team. The spring musical. Cabinet-level positions in multiple clubs, all things I had been part of for years. Saying I was involved might be an understatement. I wanted to do everything possible. Being busy had me thriving. And of course, I was doing it all with some of my favorite people in the world.
Leaving everything behind felt like abandoning what I had built for myself for no good reason.
At every senior event, I came close to tears but forced myself to hold them back. Just a few years earlier, my friends and I had made fun of crying seniors because we joked that they were acting like they were dying. It turns out, though, it did kind of feel like that. Not that I was dying, but that a version of me was.
Everything I had done was working toward college, but once I got there, what would I have?
As it turns out, a lot.
I’ve made new friends who have quickly also become some of my favorite people, tried to be as involved as possible, and started finding a new place for myself here at St. Bonaventure.
All of this to say, just because you’ve grown to be happy where you are doesn’t mean there aren’t things worth missing. I know I’m blessed to have had a great high school experience, and I’ll carry those memories with me for the rest of my life. To me, that’s not embarrassing. It’s something to be proud of.