<p>You'd think this would belong in the high school life section, but...I'm not in high school anymore, and they're all in the same boat as me, anyways. I need someone to read this whose boat has finally touched down on a shore somewhere, who can let me know that it won't capsize...but enough of the bad metaphors. This is my problem: Graduation was Friday. It was great- people actually paid attention to my salutatorian speech (And cried! Mission accomplished!) and we all handed our principal marbles when we shook his hand (it was hilarious) and I got to say goodbye to all my friends and it was so great- but, uh, now what? I was one of those kids, probably like most of the people on this site, that was on top during high school. I won all the awards, I was the kid the teachers stopped to talk to in the hallways, I was in all the activities and clubs...I was important, or at least I felt that way. I had direction. I was, well, for the most part, pretty happy because I was allowed to do what I loved- theatre and band and writing and just hanging out with my friends. But all of that's more or less over now.
I came out of high school feeling very small, very finite. I wonder if I feel the same as an old person on their birthday, wondering why everyone is celebrating when it just means they're another year closer to death. I guess it scares me that the juvenile part of my life is over- that I can't be angsty and expect any sympathy (sad, but true, and probably not just for me), that the time to wonder has been superseded by the time to plan, that the people I knew for the past few years aren't going to see me anymore, that I will be reduced to a crappy year book photo and a few obscure memories in their mind. Maybe it's the moving on and forgetting that, more than anything else, make graduation akin to a funeral in my mind. I have older siblings- one in college and the other moved out- and it was astonishing to me how quickly we all adapted to life without them. I know that's life, and you have to move on, but it's so new and weird.
I've moved schools before, so I know what it's like to be uprooted from a town and from a group of people you've lived with your whole life, but somehow, this feels like an entirely new experience. I guess I've grappled with the whole nihilistic, what-the-heck-am-I-doing-here-anyways mindset for some time, but graduating just brought it back into light. I suddenly have this fear that everything I do and will do is completely pointless, especially considering that I want to write. People spend years on books that get rejected. I could spend my years doing something that might seem more productive- teaching literature, acting, practicing child psychology, or some other acute interest of mine- but in the end, they're all the same, isn't it?
I just feel a little like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, and that's not really the movie character I grew up wanting to be like, you know? So, if anyone has any advice...</p>
<p>There’s nothing abnormal about what you’re feeling. After a long, absorbing phase of your life, it’s very common to feel a letdown when it’s all over. Seems weird – isn’t this what you’ve been working toward? Shouldn’t you be happy?? But no, it seems we humans thrive on the process of reaching toward a goal – the classes, tests, ECs, apps. It’s invigorating; it gives your life meaning and direction. </p>
<p>Advice, besides recognizing that it’s normal, is to get busy with something else for the summer. Not psycho-busy, not stressful-busy, but busy enough to add some structure to your day. Do something you haven’t had time for during all these years of getting ready for college. A volunteer job, even part-time, will take your mind off yourself and give you a sense that you’re doing something important again.</p>
<p>Agree with LasMa that what you’re feeling is normal. Even though you’ve moved before, college IS a bigger and often scarier change for a couple of reasons that you’ve astutely pointed out. It’s the first time that you really can’t see around the bend in the road. You will have to chart your own path - your course of study isn’t prescribed for you. And then, when you’re done with college, there isn’t an automatic next step to take – you will have to make a decision ( fortunately not an irrevocable one) about who you want to be. This stage of life necessarily involves a lot of uncertainty. But you can live with uncertainty, and you’ll experience a lot of good things along the way. All you have to do is keep going – find things you care about, get involved… and be patient. Things will fall into place. Manage your expectations - freshman year of college is an awkward time for most people. It takes time to find out where you fit, and there may be some false starts, but you will… gradually. You certainly don’t have to have your whole life figured out before you even start.</p>
<p>“Reduced to a crappy yearbook photo…”
Pretty good line! I think your problem in the future will be editing down the word count…
So, what are you planning on doing? Are you going to study creative writing?</p>
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<p>College can indeed seem scary. Once you get to college, you’ll find the students there couldn’t care less what you were like in high school. For many kids, this is great, and very liberating. They have a clean slate, and no one they meet has any preconceived notions about them. For kids who were popular and accomplished, this can be a shock. Now no one is impressed with the fact that you were cheerleader, the quarterback of a middling football team, or valedictorian. But even for those kids, it’s an opportunity to reinvent yourself in a way. I had a wonderful college experience.</p>
<p>Living life, observing people, getting out there and taking chances is not “pointless.” These kinds of experiences will make your writing more compelling.</p>
<p>And I agree with others. Get out there and do some volunteer work-get out of yourself and go help someone. You might learn something valuable about the world in the process, some truths about yourself, and you could make a difference in someone’s life who may have had some pretty tough struggles. It feels good to change the focus from yourself and do a kindness for someone else-it feels very, very good in fact.</p>
<p>Thank you, everyone, for your advice! I have musical theatre for the first two weeks of summer, so I guess that’s something. And gouf78, I’m majoring in writing and linguistics, since you asked!</p>
<p>You sound like a very talented, interesting person. Your post reminds me of the song, “House at Pooh Corner,” recorded by Loggins and Messina in the early 70’s. Kenny Loggins wrote it at age 17, just as he was about to become an adult. It’s all about that moment when you just wish you could be a kid again. “back to the days of Christopher Robin and Pooh…” It’s really touching, you’ll enjoy it.</p>
<p>Thirty-nine years ago, when I graduated from high school, I felt exactly as you do, except there was also the matter of a classmate whom I liked a lot whose REAL boyfriend had returned from college the week before. I was very down for several weeks, and then my mood improved to general mopiness, where it stayed for much of the summer, except for a few flashes of fun. I pretty much wallowed in it, which was fine; I’m lucky I had that luxury and had only a part-time job. My big accomplishment for the summer – and, actually, it WAS kind of a big accomplishment – was reading books 2-7 and half of book 8 of A la recherche du temps perdu in French. (It’s perfect if you are an artistic, mopey, self-centered 18 year-old who can read French. I read the first book over the last couple months of high school.)</p>
<p>I also talked to my parents a lot, especially my mom. And I spent some time chasing girls, none of whom let me catch her, although one thought hard about it.</p>
<p>The night before I left for college, I sobbed and sobbed. I had really loved my life the past few years, and it was clear that I would never get back what I had had – my family, my friends, my school, my community, my house . . . none of that would ever be as much mine, or as central to my life as they had been when I was in high school. I knew I was right, and I was inconsolable.</p>
<p>I loved college. 50, 100 times more than high school. It was so exciting sometimes, I thought I might burst. It got better and better as it went along. And life after college was scarier than college had seemed before I went, but that turned out to be unbelievably exciting and fun, too, as well as challenging. Although I still talk to some of my friends from high school (and my family, of course), the friends I made in the ten years AFTER high school have been the key friends of my life. </p>
<p>And, needless to say, I had not met the love of my life when I left home, and did not even have a good idea what the love of my life would be like. Not to mention my children. Trying to remember what I knew about love before them is like imagining what it would be like to be a pre-Copernican astronomer.</p>
<p>Anyway, you get my point: The good stuff isn’t ending for you. It’s just beginning. Everything you’ve done to this point has just been getting ready for it. Soon, it will be happening. Wow!</p>
<p>Also, one final point, from my kids’ experience, not mine. No one is “reduced to a crappy yearbook photo” anymore, at least not without a lot of work on their part. That’s because everyone has a constantly refreshed Facebook page. Facebook means that you never have to lose touch with your high school friends, your high school acquaintances, and the people you never quite got around to knowing in high school but might have wanted to talk to. Or they with you. My daughter’s worst enemy from camp, or the friend she had a break-up with in 10th grade? She’s seen their wedding pictures, and knows their kids’ names.</p>
<p>I think a lot of us here can identify with you. </p>
<p>You’re graduating from high school – which was a meaningful and rewarding time for you.</p>
<p>We’re “graduating” from the active phase of parenting – which was meaningful and rewarding for us.</p>
<p>You don’t know whether what’s coming next will be as good as what came before. Neither do we.</p>
<p>We get it.</p>
<p>Great post, JHS :)!</p>
<p>Wow- your post was incredible, JHS! I don’t have a high school sweetheart or anything, but I sure can relate with the mopey, bookish summers and realizing that nothing is going to be the same.
Sopranomom- Thank you for telling me about that song! I’ve actually heard it somewhere before, but I never knew the name or anything. I wanna say it was on Full House once…anyways, I love older music, so thank you!</p>
<p>The great thing about being a writer (and you have a lot of potential) is that you get to mine all the angst, deep dread, hopeless ennui, furtive doubts, grandiose dreams, and dull thudding certainty that life will never get better. So… my advice is to relax and enjoy even the down times. This is the fodder. This is the material. All this feeling and awareness and inner turmoil.</p>
<p>You’re going to love college. You can share all of this over coffee with friends who totally get you.</p>