Senior Year

I started my senior year of high school a few weeks ago. I feel bad for already marking this year as one that I’m going to struggle in, but it’s too late now I guess. I’ve already accepted that it’ll be a year of loneliness. A year of sitting at lunch alone, staying at home during the last homecoming dance and prom, crying in the bathroom during the passing periods in between classes, eating too much food, gaining weight, and wondering why God hated me enough to make me the loneliest person to ever exist and also the most dramatic. But that’s not really the point of this piece today.

I have too many dreams. And they’re all too big to accomplish. I want to study abroad. I somehow believe that if I pick up everything I own and run away to a different city (or country, for that matter) that I will somehow become this entirely different person, a confident one with a big group of friends who they hang out with all the time. Going out to parties and discovering new worlds with new people who I’ll charm with my bubbly and extroverted personality. But I’m not really that person.

I guess these thoughts were inspired by those things people do in movies, where something doesn’t go their way back home so they pack up and jump ship to find themselves. But I wonder: will that really help? I have responsibilities here and loved ones here that I’ll miss if I leave for college and I don’t want to miss out on anything.

Maybe I should. Why do I even want to leave? I suppose the idea of starting 100% fresh in an entirely new world where no one knows me provides an entirely clean slate: I can be whoever I want to be. I can fake it until I make it and no one would know the difference. Honestly, though, the main reason I want to leave stems from the idea of freedom from the responsibilities I mentioned earlier. If I left I wouldn’t have to be responsible for my mom, or my siblings. I wouldn’t have to act like an adult all the time. I could take care of just myself and no one else. I could be my own person and find my own self without the pollution of trying to take care of everyone else around me but me.

The secondary reason: I’m terribly in love. I’m head over heels for a boy I can’t have, so that sucks. If I left maybe I’d meet someone new. Someone more obtainable and better than him. To be frank, this entire story sounds like a script from an angsty monologue in a bad "quirky teen" movie and I don’t want to delve into this unrequited love story because I’ve cried enough about it for two lifetimes. Also, I just hate being angsty, I’d rather be happy. But it is one of the reasons I want to run away from my hometown for as long as physically possible.

Another reason: I’m terrified I’ll be stuck here forever. I don’t live in a small town but it’s not big either. I’m terrified that if I stay here and go to a community college that I will end up never leaving. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’ll probably end up dying here when I’m old, but I have so much time in between then and now so I might as well see as much of the world as I can before then. This southeastern corner of Texas cannot be the only place I ever see. That would be a nightmare for me. If I don’t bolt while I can, maybe I never will. And the thought of that alone is enough to be the final kick that shoves me out of my parents’ house and into the terribly real world outside of it.

So, do I let my fears dictate my decision of staying or leaving for college? I don’t know. On one hand, I’m telling myself that I won’t always have the opportunity to follow my own ambitions and I can’t let the people I have here permanently tie me down to this place. On the other there’s the concern about money: scholarships are a tedious and exhausting process and they’re not even a guaranteed source of college money. Studying at a four-year university while living on campus is expensive without the added cost of room and board, textbooks, food, etc.. not to mention how much more it’d be to live in a new country for a semester up to a year.

I don’t know what I’ll do. I suppose I have time to figure it out but even knowing that I’m still stressed. I’m sure I’ll figure it out, but I wish I could skip the "figuring it out" part and go right to the "figured it out" part. Wish me luck this year. Lord knows I’m going to need it.