I have been holding off on writing an column for the past few months because I was too caught up in my final months of high school. I figured that once graduation came along I would have so much to say, the words would just come easily.
When I woke up the day after the words didn’t come. I didn’t know what I wanted to say, I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. To be completely honest it didn’t even feel real.
When my name was called to walk up I didn’t have the flood of emotion that I had expected. I didn’t begin to reflect on my life in high school, I didn’t even see it as an ending to what had been a large chapter in my life. In fact the only thing I was thinking about as I made that walk was keeping my cap from falling off my head.
I remember when I was in grade eight, I would run in to family friends and they would always say “So you’re in the high school now” like it was some big deal. I quickly came to the conclusion that high school was very overrated.
Grade 12 was going to be different, or at least I wanted it to be. That’s what I said in the very first column I wrote for the newspaper, that I wanted this year to be different. I had been told by countless people that would be, that the last year was just something special.
During the last days of school I did reflect a little. This year didn’t turn out the way I had expected, but then again I didn’t really know what to expect. For the longest time it didn’t even feel like I was even in grade 12. For the longest time I felt the exact same as I had in grade 11.
I did keep thinking about how that a lot of the things I was doing I was doing for the last time.
My first day of school in September was also my last first day at Smithers Secondary. All of the teachers I had this year I was having for the first time, but in the back of my mind also the last time.
A couple weeks before graduation I started to realize that the graduation ceremony was going to be the last time that I saw a lot of those people. I was just too busy trying to keep my cap on, to even think about the people around me.
I’ve spent weeks now trying to string the words together.
I still don’t even think it’s sunk in, but after weeks of deliberation I think I know what I want to say.
I have graduated from high school, and it couldn’t have come soon enough. High school has given me as much as it could have. I am proud of not only my friends but of the entire class of 2011. I believe that the world can expect great things from us.
Kaeli Ayers is a writer for The Interior News’ youth column Twenty Below.
