As I lay in bed the night before the first day of my senior year of college – clothes for the next day picked out just like I’ve done since I started kindergarten – I’m overcome with a montage of memories from my educational journey. At 21, my life has barely begun, yet I’m struck by the reality of how fast I have grown up.
As a little girl, I worshiped teenagers. Now that I can tie my own shoes, have my own cell-phone, and grudgingly wear a bra, however, I can say I’d much rather be a freckled six year old whose only care in the world is whether or not she has time to jump on the trampoline after school. If I squeeze my eyes shut hard enough, I can almost feel the Velcro straps of my pink princess light up shoes snug over my feet, hear the kookaburras chant as my classmates and I race to the playground, and smell the distinct odor of tire bits under the swings. However, when I open my eyes I am not 5 nor 8 nor 10, but in the foreign body of a full grown woman I hardly recognize. Suddenly, I have outgrown even my own fantasies of being a teenager the same way a pot boils or a tomato plant sprouts its fruit: all at once and as soon as you look away. I blinked and my reflection doubled in size.
It’s hard to believe it’s been almost 10 years since I sat next to my crush Will in 6th grade typing class and learned how to flirt. There’s no way the scabs from my middle school bike crashes have now been replaced with small white spots on my knees I only see when I remember the sting of concrete bits under my skin. How can I possibly be so desensitized to inserting a tampon when just recently the whole idea of menstruation was only a joke we made with red markers and tissues? In the moment, middle school seemed so complex – I was so angry and so sweaty and so ashamed of myself for not being skinnier or quieter or more graceful – and yet I somehow managed to zoom through three years of angst with only a few moments locked in my memory.
As I get older time moves faster; the eternal four years during high-school have been repeated in what feels like a millisecond and I’m in awe that I’ve been done with highschool for as long as I was in it. I remember studying for the SAT, researching dining halls and diversity on college campuses, applying for college scholarships, and receiving my first acceptance letter. I remember bloody braces at basketball practice, how my teammates’ moms cut oranges for volleyball fundraisers, humming along to someone’s speaker playing on the bus to tournaments, and pouring ice water on each other in between outdoor games. I remember studying for math during lunch just so I could pass the class, hiding in my mom’s office so I could cry away from judgemental stares, eating my friends leftover snacks because I was always so hungry, and watching “Orange is the New Black” in the library during my free period. For me, highschool was a period of major change: I learned to love, experienced loss, dedicated myself to writing and sports, and yet two days after graduation packed my bags, flew out, and have yet to return.
On this steaming August night with my sheet haphazardly draped over my leg, I grin through salty tears as I reminisce about who I was, praise who I am, and fantasize about who I will become. Some of my quirks seem to be lifelong, as even puberty couldn’t shake them off. I still squint when I smile, stain every white piece of clothing I ever wear, trip into tables and even on my own feet, and inhale fruit like it’s going out of style. How can it be that so much and so little has changed since the first time I set foot on a school bus 16 years ago? How can it be that it wasn’t yesterday when I lost my first tooth, had my first kiss, or moved into my freshman dorm? Although in the morning my parents won’t be snapping pictures as a 5th grader helps me and my giant backpack up the school bus stairs, come tomorrow, my best friend will run out the door with an equally overpacked backpack, a Sargento Balanced Break, and a mason jar of iced coffee. Tomorrow is my last first day of school but that doesn’t mean my life is over: I have more memories to add to my montage.
