High school – loved by some and hated by others, but besides that, there is a consensus about this part of our academic background from who could end it by the end of adolescence or early adulthood: it was really remarkable.
For those who loved it, it brought iconic moments, unique friendships and opportunities never seen before, as well as less demands compared to adult life. For those who want to forget high school days, they couldn’t have been worse, either because of horrible teachers, or because of terrible classmates. Regardless of where you are on the “how I feel after the end of high school” spectrum, one thing is right: nostalgia can wash over you without any warning, and dealing with it will be essential to move on after the end of this era.
That’s why we brought you some tips on how to come to terms with the end of your school phase!
Normalize mixed feelings
Understanding how to deal with mixed feelings that coexist in you – like relief, ecstasy, sorrow, anxiety, all at once – is one of the first measures to be taken after the end of your last year, and organizing them is necessary to enjoy what comes later: a promising university admission, a well-paid job or a successful personal project.
In order to process these multiple emotions, defining them with words and verbalizing how you feel about this is essential, it will make their intensity decrease and will allow you to think about what can be done about each of them. To complete this process, seeing therapists or psychologists is important, and gives you good influences about other parts of your life. These are only some indispensable acts of self-care to deal with this complex range of emotions these days may bring you. Sleeping well, eating healthily and physical activities also help in the control of anxiety, stress and, why not, nostalgia.
Besides, making a mini ending ceremony, keeping important objects in “time capsules” or a farewell dinner with your high school friends will make your brain realize that a transition is happening.
If you are one of those people who don’t miss high school at all, the emotional fatigue may follow the relief of the end of this phase. For you, all these self-care strategies are recommended (the stress of the end of high school demands resting) and seeing a psychologist is ideal to create emotional resting strategies and, who knows, redefine bad memories.
Redefine friendships
During this transition phase, you must accept the fact that your school friends probably will change, and so will you. It doesn’t mean that all your friendships have to end after the school bell rings for the last time, but it must be clear that you don’t need to feel pressured to keep them exactly the same way it has been so far. Friendships made in high school (and, sometimes, way before that) should grow, because they aren’t limited to meeting daily in an academic environment anymore and, after the end of this era, will be cultivated like all the relationships you will build during the rest of your life.
Considering this, talk to your friends and plan to keep in touch at a frequency that can be reconciled with everybody’s current lives. Monthly calls and meetings on special dates can be great ideas. Social media is also a good tool to constantly contact people you really care about and you want to keep close.
In case this huge life change naturally makes you and your friends lose touch, don’t panic. It is absolutely normal and it happens even between your best friends. Then, don’t forget to build new relationships. Keeping your already solid connections is very good, makes the nostalgia experience unique: you have someone who keeps a special part of yours that you left behind and allows you to live new moments close to an important person. But, if you need to let them go, remember that watering new seeds of friendships and fertilizing them will allow you to make new friends and build memories as remarkable as the ones you had with your group during high school.
Focus on future
Always remember that thinking about your past all the time will not make you well, it’s actually the opposite, it makes you return to old moments infinitely. To get out of this vicious cycle, start thinking about the future, you shall get excited about what is coming in this new chapter of your life.
Don’t worry about creating complex and detailed plans at first, just set some simple goals, like reading a book that you left on your shelf or ending a TV series that you stopped watching because of your final tests, they will make you feel more positive about other future achievements. If thoughts of concrete goals, like “what do I want to do after the end of school?”, are keeping you up at night, relax and give yourself a break to process all of the possibilities, from starting an internship to get your own money to backpacking around somewhere.
Another valuable tip is producing a wishlist and planning each step for your goals (and don’t forget plans can change when they are put into practice!). The satisfaction when you feel that life is going on to somewhere even better will make you more relaxed and open your mind to what lies ahead.
Boundaries with nostalgia
Spending hours looking at pictures and watching videos of your high school years can be very good, going through the good (and some not so good) memories this part of your life brought you. And, seriously, there is nothing wrong with that! But you must remember that making a living from it is not interesting at all, it means you are only living your past life, and that nostalgia is taking control of you, and not the opposite.
Therefore, pay attention to how long you spend on past memories and, if you notice that you wasted hours of your day in social media, stalking your friends and colleagues thinking about how things would be if you were still taking classes together or consuming media from students still in high school, reconsider your actions and see how good or bad this is for you.
Nostalgia can be an ally when you feel anxious and a protagonist when you meet your high school friends again, but it can’t let you freeze. It must become something that moves you forward, not backward.
These are only some tips to make this transition process less painful and make nostalgia a big helper when you look at your past and miss these times, but can’t forget the new experiences and memories that only the future can show you.
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The article below was edited by Eloá Costa.
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