Like all teenage girls who think they're unique for listening almost exclusively to Taylor Swift and One Direction, High School Musical has guided much of my life expectations thus far.
To that end, I always envisioned my graduation would look something like this:
I expected the dramatic curtain drop, the fourth-wall break as I look directly into the camera that has been following my journey for the past four years, a misty-eyed goodbye culminating in a jump-shot in my cap and gown.
It's actually terrifying. It's leaving behind everything I've ever known, but knowing that it's time. It's having the best few weeks of your entire schooling experience right before it all ends, because (to paraphrase Nanny McPhee) when you want something to stay the same, that's exactly when it has to change. It's jumping in a mob until your calves burn at prom and learning how to play Roulette at the mock-casino your high school builds for you (where is this high-budget-ness literally EVERY other day) and hoping you're getting enough pictures. It's praying that everyone who has told you "we have to hang out this summer" actually means it. It's attending an 'Onboarding Webinar for Incoming Freshman Class of 2027!' even though I don't feel like the Class of '27 yet. It's wanting to freeze time and swearing to come back and visit but knowing that you probably won't.
Life is leaving. Over and over and over and over and over again. And I hope it's kaleidoscopic change, the kind that makes me infinitely better every time. I hope every night brings me as much peace and comfort as the bricks and bones of Troy High have for the past six years -- a building that I left behind on Saturday night. I hope one day I can look back with the kind of nostalgia that warms, not cripples.
But if this is the highest hill I ever find-- it's high enough.
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