As a child the one thing I wanted most was to grow up, turn 18 and move away. I would always say, “I can’t wait until I’m 18.” I still say that now, but it has a totally different meaning. As a kid the only thing I was thinking about was that I would finally be able to do whatever I wanted without needing to worry about my parents. Although that is true, I now know what comes along with growing up which is reality and a whole lot of responsibilities. I have had plans my whole life for what I want to do when I graduate and how successful I want to become. It used to be exciting thinking about after high school, but now that I am a senior and we only have a month until Christmas break, I am really starting to see the reality of graduating and moving away from home which means I’ll be completely on my own.

As a senior in high school, one has to constantly worry about so many different things because you’re not only in your last year of high school but this year is your year. Your senior year is when you’re expected to answer all the questions you’ve been asked your whole life. What do you want to do? Where do you want to go to college? Is your ACT score going to be good enough to get you into the college you want to go to? Will you get accepted to the college you want to go to?

At the end of my junior year and coming in to my senior year, I could not wait to graduate and get out of this town, but now everything is really sinking in and stressing me out. I know I’m not the only senior stressing out about graduating because once we’re 18 and graduated, we are adults and we have to take on all the responsibilities we have heard our parents talk about and have seen our parents go through. We take on bills, college, work, studying, and making time for our own personal life. All of that is scary. We may only still be considered as “kids,” but we’re growing up and really soon we’ll have just as many responsibilities as our parents do.