the end of high school and the lifes we could have lived

whether i like it or not, summer's end is fast approaching. every year around this time of the season, i feel a lot of melancholy. i look back on my summer and say "wow what a waste of time". despite all the plans i had set out, it all ties back to how much money i'm willing to spend. yes, i was going to go on a big trip this summer and have myself a little adventure. but the money i needed to spend in order to make that happen, specifically on gas and/or train tickets, was too much for me.

take it from a guy who has a lot of ambition but very little follow-through: don't wait. do whatever you want forever. when it comes to living a fulfilling life, you can't sit around and wait for an opportune moment. the best time is right now.

my last year of high school is coming up, and with it, more responsibility. i'm one of the first in my class to turn eighteen, so i wouldn't be surprised if that for some reason meant i can handle more work, which i already am gonna have plenty of for the next nine months.

in total, i have spent twenty-seven months of my life (about 2.25 years) in high school. during this time, many pivotal events in my life were expected to happen, and yet, they didn't. namely never having my first kiss nor any boyfriends or girlfriends, which will probably have to wait until college. it's not like it needed to happen now, but i look at my peers from all over my district, and seemingly most of them had or are currently in a relationship of some kind. it just makes me feel like if it were to happen, it was going to happen now. especially with all the emphasis on it during my upbringing.

in the beginning of my adolescent years, i was told that my body would start to change, as most others like me have also heard. along that was an uncomfortably huge emphasis on getting crushes on girls. it was beat into my head that when i enter middle school i would develop attraction towards girls right alongside what i refer to as "sweat and hormones". i go to middle school, and nothing. i would actually get frustrated that i didn't feel attraction toward not just girls but everyone. nobody was even remotely attractive to me. and around this time was when i started toying with the notion that i'm gay so that didn't help either. though middle school was always seen by me as a "sweat and hormone factory" so i guess that part of the ancient prophecy i was supposed to follow got fulfilled.

enter high school, and a couple of people found me handsome, which i thought was weird. nobody had ever expressed a desire to be close to me so, being a touch-starved depressed tween, thought that they were lying and made me uncomfortable. looking back i shoulda taken them up on their offers.

even so, despite it being blatantly obvious i feel alienated for not experiencing these things, i get by. though i crave the company of someone i call partner, i know i'm not gonna roll over and die because of it.

another thing that i was forced to skip in my high school experience was, weirdly, spending time with friends outside of school. yeah, literally the easiest part of this whole equation. turns out when you yourself are a shut-in nerd who comes off as an asshole all the time, you befriend other shut-ins. i would've really liked to spend more time with these people. truly, i like the good deal of them. and it seems they want to hang out with me as well. but the issue arises when nobody really does anything, even when the offer is put out there.

something quite funny happened to me on the last day of school: every year, our friend group heads down to a cafe and we play cards. at some point i started to feel sick, likely from lack of sleep from the night before. when i got up to leave, one of my closet friends in the group looked up to me and said "have a good summer". this isn't a super big thing on the surface, but the way he said it sounded like he didn't expect to see me until the start of the next school year. i wonder what he'll say on the last day of senior year. will there even be a get-together? would i even be invited?

high school is a doozy. if i could go back, i would've went to a different school. the one i go to is so small and lacks many of the resources that the other big schools have. but even with that said, it wasn't all bad. i still had some good times and hey at least i never have to do any of this again. i'm not looking forward to the first month. getting back into the swing of things, all the ice breakers, and little weird things we do, is always hell. but it's the last time it'll happen so i'll try to savor it a bit more this time. hell, in a way i'm kinda looking forward to it. i always loved the first cool breeze of autumn, watching the leaves change on the trees in the park outisde my school windows. it's nice.

if you've read this entire thing and you're still in high school, do me a favor and try to enjoy it a little bit. i know you hate it, but everyone else hates it too. make yourself some memories.