Weak at the knees

I'm starting to think about endings. I'm getting that cliched, nostalgic feeling all seniors get. SIXTEEN. 16. ONE-SIX. My final day of high school is May 16th and I can't stop thinking about it. I don't know what it means, really. Aside from the obvious meaning, of course. I'll soon enter the awkward space between final school day and graduation. I'll become a "college 8th grader" I suppose? When you're no longer a senior in high school, but not quite yet a college freshman, what are you? And how are you supposed to know how to feel? It doesn't make sense to feel nostalgic so soon because no one's even left yet.

It seems like adulthood is peeling toward me at 150mph with its high beams on, fire blazing from the tailpipes. And I'm just standing there, confused and scared, thinking- hoping- it's a dream. I stand there because I don't know what else to do. Because every adult I know keeps telling me, "it will be fine". "Change is good".

I've been telling myself that forever. I like change. But not the kind of change that suddenly appears on the horizon of your childhood, the field that seemed to stretch on forever. The change charging straight toward you, blood thirsty, ready to transform your life. How does anyone know how to face that? Not even your past sass thursdays and usual confidence can help you. Frankly, I don't know any other way to handle it other than to stand there with nothing but your nostalgia and your yearbook in hand. Scared and defenseless. Hoping you don't pass out before it reaches you. And maybe, just before it does, find the possibility in it, that thing that gleams off its shiny red paint when the sunlight hits it just right. In that moment, it hits your stomach, like a playful breeze or the gentle beat of butterfly wings. The feeling you get just before a first kiss or a dive into cold water. Or before going to college and realizing this was the best collision of your life.

-ZMar

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