Rachel’s Ravings – This Is It

Rachel Middleton
August 26, 2010
Filed under Features

They were intimidating. They were so tall I had to stand on my tiptoes to see over them, dodge and turn sideways so I wouldn’t be squashed. They were prettier, laughed more, talked more. I wanted to be one of them so badly. These were my thoughts about GACS seniors in sixth grade, when my sister was one. Every afternoon after school I would have to walk the entirety of the senior hall to meet her at her locker to ride home, and it was a traumatic experience every time; I was frightened yet intrigued, intimidated but jealous. I couldn’t wait until my locker would be in that hallway, until I would be tall enough to see over the crowd. And now that I have a senior locker (the dreaded bottom locker, of course) and I’m tall enough to not be trampled (for the most part), I know that I had a false perception of what being a senior was really like. So I’m here to fill you in, after two weeks, of what it’s like to be a senior.

First of all, I don’t feel any different. The first day of school, my last at GAC, was the same as always, just plus a laptop. My friends are awesome per usual but the same, some of them since sixth grade. Our “new” kids to our class this year are students who are returning after only a few years or even a few months absent. There’s nothing big and scary and new, not counting college applications, but even those are basically just another assignment. They just matter a little more.

The only actual difference I’ve noticed so far, besides sitting in the gallery at lunch, is noticing whose missing. Seeing Sandy Jiang get her yearbook at Spartan 2gether day, getting Rachel Huppertz’s old AP lit book watching former Spartan Spear-it blogger Chelsea Mitchell drive through the GAC carpool, not in uniform, to pick up her sister, and Facebook stalking Dorothy Wallis’ dorm room pictures all remind me that they’re gone; even when we were technically the oldest class in 8^th grade, the class of 2010 was just across the quad. It’s difficult to think about that they’re spread out now, all over the country, friends who’ve been together for up to 15 years now separated. Every time one of my friends mentions how we’re going to all be apart next year I rapidly change the subject, not really because it’s hard to handle, but because it honestly doesn’t feel real to me yet, at all.

Which is probably a good thing, because I’m not sure how well I’m going to cope when it finally hits me.

But now isn’t the time to think about that. Fellow GACS seniors and high school students, now is the time to do what Ms. Terry told us to do on the retreat: Live It Up. Yes, we have homework. And sports practices. And college applications. And newspaper deadlines. But, in my opinion, while school should definitely be our top priority, it should never be our only priority. We should stop waiting to feel different, for our lives to start, and set a good example for those sixth graders who are looking up to the high school, like I was. We have to make the most of the time we have with our friends and the people we care about, serving God and loving each other while we’re still here at GACS.

Because it won’t last forever.

Tags: blog, Rachel's Ravings, seniors

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