Dear Class of 2023 and Any Graduating Class to Come

I would like to begin this blog post with a declamation for my hatred of unpopular opinions because THEY LITERALLY ARE NOT UNPOPULAR. The "scandalous hot-take" is:

1. Something everyone is thinking but no one is saying

2. Something everyone is thinking and also probably saying (stop living under a rock)

3. Something overtly offensive, obscene, or factually incorrect

OR

4. All of the above...somehow

[This example is not mine...I do agree with four of these, though...but I'm not gonna tell you which ones, it keeps the element of surprise...I'll give you a cookie if you guess correctly!!!]

A not-so-unpopular unpopular opinion has just become an excuse for people to say whatever is on their mind without being subjected to the ramifications for their inexcusable language. With that being said, hopefully I can change your mind. 

UNPOPULAR OPINION: As the Troy High Class of 2023, we need to stop rushing toward graduation because the month of March has been filled with many "lasts" for me -- last cello lesson, last orchestra competition, last forensics invitational -- and I don't know how much more my extremely unstable mental state can take. Actually, I do know, and it's not much. 

This past weekend, I competed in my very final forensics invitational (for sports fans, think of an invitational as part of the "regular season" with our "playoffs" being the regional and state competitions). And upon reflecting over the weekend, I can't help but think of how much I, along with the rest of the forensics seniors, have grown. Especially in terms of team leadership. 

When I was a freshman beginning my high school forensics career, I looked up to the seniors with the utmost respect and admiration. I mean, I'm sure you all remember. They were sooooo cool and seemed to have everything figured out. They knew where they were going to college, they dressed nicely (a trait that seemed to impress me the most for some reason), and, at least in the case of forensics, they were phenomenal public speakers. But now that my classmates and I have reached the same milestone in our lives, I can't say that I feel that way about myself. 

Picture from Saturday!!

But of course, it is in times like these where I can always rely on the existential crises that 12 AP poetry selections force myself to spiral into (thank you Mrs. Knudson). 

"Famous" by Naomi Shihab explores the idea of perspective. Essentially, her poem explains that the people and concepts that we consider to be famous are only famous from our perspective. The best line, in my opinion, is about shoes in which Shihab so masterfully proclaims "The boot is famous to the Earth,/ more famous than the dress shoe,/ which is famous only to floors." (10-12) In the context of our lives right now, I think this can easily be represented in the feeling of confidence and maturity, or lack-there-of, that many of us have been experiencing as we look back on our freshman year. We reflect on who we looked up to when we still had all four years to figure ourselves out, and I think we all assumed -- likely to the fault of the way high school is portrayed in American entertainment...I blame High School Musical -- that we were going to change significantly throughout high school, and to some extent, we did. 

Could little freshman you conquer AP class after AP class? Did they have the resilience to push through a year-and-a-half of online learning just to return to in-person school with very little stamina and a very difficult junior year schedule? Were they capable of surviving high school in the twenty-first century where it seems like every move you make is being calculated into your chances of being accepted into [insert dream school here]? 

I'll be the first to admit that freshman me couldn't do that. But at the same time, there's still a lot I don't know. 

I don't know where I'm going to college. I don't know how I feel about graduating so soon. I don't know if I can explain who I have become and who I will be a year, four years, or ten years from now. So my point is Shihab hits the nail on the head. The people we so fondly admire are only held to that praise because of our perspective. Because I can almost guarantee that although our high school experience has been rough (and that's an extreme understatement), the seniors we look up to (better known as the high school Class of 2020) didn't have it all figured out like we thought they did. They had to decide where to go to college without the opportunity to visit many of those schools after being admitted. In fact, they weren't even sure if they were going to college in the midst of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

So while it's easy to feel like we cannot compare to the graduating classes in the past, we don't have the right perspective to even make a comparison. Instead, we should stop comparing ourselves to others (college applications have ended for the most part...it's time to move on) and be proud of everything that has happened. And also, we should accept that we don't know everything. And that's completely okay. The date of graduation isn't going to get here any sooner if we spend every day aching to be free from the walls of Troy High, so let's stop rushing and enjoy the time we have left. We have so much more to learn -- from our teachers, from each other, and yes, even from ourselves. 

And for the record, I hope this isn't cliche, but I think this whole blog post is at this point so I'm just going to say it: I'm very very proud of every single one of you hehe and I hope you are proud of yourselves too. We're almost there! 

Unrelated, but my cat decided to actually cuddle with me this week! This might be too dark of humor in lieu of everything I just wrote, but maybe she's realizing that I'll be moving out soon? Just kidding, I know she probably just wants me to feed her extra...