is it over?

There’s a finality in everything I do now. This is the last quarter of high school. This is the last day before spring break. This is the last time I go here, I do this. And it’s weird to know there will be a day where I won’t remember what this feels like.

Senior year tastes like iced coffee from the bagel store and Valentine’s Day Sweet Tarts. It sounds like uncontrollable laughter layered with crying and the sound of screaming along to Traitor by Olivia Rodrigo. It looks like late-night drives, mid-day naps, sitting in class and bearing the heavy weight of what-ifs. And it presses on me, willing me to preserve the memories in a jar before they’re gone.

In less than six months, I’ll be in California with a bunch of strangers and Stanford won’t just be a pipe dream or an acceptance letter or the letters in my Instagram bio. It will be real life, beneath my feet, mine for the taking. I’m not fully ready to become the college girl I spent all of high school crafting in my mind; I always imagined myself as cool and enigmatic, fashionable and down-to-earth, loved by all, my high school self but better and prettier. As I get closer and closer to graduation, though, I’ve started to like my current self more and more. I am pretty and kind and funny and smart, and maybe we don’t transform as soon as we head off to college. Maybe growth isn’t discarding your past self, but adding onto an already worthy foundation.

I still need a prom date and to write my graduation speech. The year is far from over. But I can feel the change creeping in. I’m not scared through- life is about living. I’m soaking it in.