As
senior year drives forward, many will look back on his or her high school
experiences. He or she will lament on how fast time has gone, how it seems as
if we have just begun our freshman year. I, on the other hand, cannot draw the
same conclusion. Although I love Chagrin Falls and my high school experience,
everything from sports to academics has made my last three years feel like ten.
This sentiment, however, has led to a false sense of eternity—an eternity that
will forever include lunch in commons, volleyball in the fall, and AP English
with Ms. Serensky. In William Shakespeare’s The
Winter’s Tale, Lord Archidamus believes “There is not in the world either/
malice or matter to alter” the friendship between Leontes and Polixenes (1.1.34-35). The reader discovers that this claim holds no
water, for their friendship dissipates soon after. Just like Archidamus
believes in the strength of this friendship, I believe in the perpetuity of
high school. I take for granted things like football games and seeing my best
friends every day, for I cannot imagine a world where they do not exist. I
recently experienced this alternate world with the completion of my volleyball
season. I spent four falls with the same girls, the same coach, and the same
gym. I had the same complaints at every practice, and the same poor attitude
about my skills. But after losing the first two sets of the district final
match, I looked to my fellow seniors and knew I could not hold this same
disposition. In them I saw not only dejection, but also a wild desperation.
This next match meant so much more than a championship—if we failed, we would
lose each other. We would never again have the opportunity to play on the same
court. All the skills we had learned felt so menial in comparison to the finality
and shock that greeted me with the loss of that game. As my senior year
continues, I know that both of these emotions will greet me again as graduation
nears. I know that there will come a time in the very near future when my
greatest stress is not writing an essay in under 40 minutes. Until then, my
sense of forever cannot, and will not, fade.
