Time Flies

When I first started high school I remember people saying to enjoy it because time goes by faster than you think. My father always told me that same thing, but I never really understood what he meant at that time. He would say “before you know it, you will be in college and working.” Back then, I didn’t have a thought to believe him. Four years of high school sounded like forever, and graduation felt so far away, that it felt like I never was going too. Pretty soon we will all be on that stage getting handed our diploma, and ready to move on to the next chapter and see where life brings us. High school just had a way of slipping by and now our moments feel like memories in the back of our heads.

It’s weird how fast time can move when you are not realizing it is happening. We were all freshmen at one point, walking through the halls knowing we were super nervous to start high school while also trying to find out where our classes were and trying to figure everything out as a freshman. Then,  4 years later and just about to graduate and start our lives, I’m still wondering where all that time went, and how it slipped right by without me noticing. One thing I have learned is that the things you remember most, aren’t the big moments. it’s usually the small and random ones that mean the most and stick with you forever.

 One of my favorite memories are just the little things that we didn’t really think would matter at the time. Just yesterday, I felt like I was spending random weekends with my friends instead of doing our school work and going to Walmart and Target just to mess around and have fun, but then getting kicked out because Emilio almost hit some innocent person with a ball. Or In the summer, randomly going on an Old Orchard Beach side mission to just walk and not really having any plan to do anything and laughing at things that most likely aren’t even funny to us anymore. Driving around looking for dealerships and asking them if we could take a random Audi for a spin we knew we couldn’t afford, instead of doing our 1600 minutes of membean. Now I have the “remember when” conversations with my friends, and I would do anything to go back and relive any of those memories. 

A weird thing to think about is that we never really stopped and thought about the fact that these moments would end. While you’re in it, you feel like you have all the time in the world and never really cared what was next for us. We would all complain about school, count down the days until the next school break. Being a senior is the first real start to your life, you start to apply to colleges, are probably working a part time job, and might even be nervous for life out of high school.  Graduating does feel like freedom, but all the years prior to senior year seemed to have disappeared. The people you once had seen everyday are going to all go in different directions in their own lives, and the teachers you will most likely never see again. 

So if there is one thing you should take out of this, it’s that; don’t rush through high school trying to find the next part of your life, and don’t spend too much time looking ahead that you forget to enjoy what’s happening in the moment. Don’t take the moments in high school for granted  before they turn into memories. Appreciate the random Old Orchard Beach side missions you go on with your friends, the dumb moments, the people around you because those things are around the moments you wish you could go back to.

“In Search Of Lost Time” by bogenfreund is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.