Senior year is the year that is supposed to be the most exciting and important year of high school. It is the year that everything leads up to. However, it doesn’t always go as well as expected. 

Once you start your freshman year, there is almost an expectation that starts off right away. You have to be a part of something, you have to do exceptionally well in all your classes, you have to have things figured out by the end of it. But that’s not what happens. The whole time I’ve been in high school, I’ve been told that I’ll have time to figure everything out. That I have so many options. But that’s not true for everybody.

The whole time, it feels like you are rushed to have things in place for your future. But what if you don’t? What if there are factors that you simply have no control over that don’t allow you to have the textbook high school experience? 

COVID-19 has been one of them. Students who once depended on going to school everyday, being taught classes in person, now had to rely solely on their own abilities to do school. It was rough. It was very rough. The amount of stress that was put on students, along with the surprisingly increased amount of work, made the 2020-2021 school year stressful and confusing. 

First we were told it wasn’t safe to go to school anymore. Then we were told everybody could come back to school for five days a week like we usually would. People struggled. Even those who had a solid plan laid out were now in the dark. 

Now imagine the students who didn’t have a solid plan laid out. Students who didn’t have the support at home or mental capacity to figure this out. My junior and senior year have been some of the worst years of my life. And not because of COVID-19, but because of the way the school handled it all. 

I don’t blame anybody for the way my high school experience turned out. If there is someone to blame for it, it is me. Because I was one of those people who could not function in that environment. I couldn’t function in a school environment or a home. 

So what was I left to do? I used to be so determined. I used to be miserable at the fact that I wouldn’t get an assignment turned in on time, or meet a deadline. 

I have fallen into a cycle of barely holding on, letting all my work become missing or late and feeling like I am alone in this. I have never felt as alone as I did during high school; it felt like no one could relate to me. Everyone seemed like they had a perfect life where they had all the resources, all the support and everything figured out. I was the odd one out. 

But that’s not true, and I can guarantee it. Nobody’s life is perfect, some people are just really good at hiding it. I was one of those people. Put on a fake smile and a giddy attitude and nobody will know that something is wrong. It’s an effective way to stop people from thinking you’re a trainwreck, but God is it lonely. 

Overall, I wouldn’t say high school was the worst thing ever. Obviously not. I had many good experiences with teachers, students and events that were organized by the high school. I met some of my closest friends at MHS. I learned so many things about myself. 

I just wish somebody, even myself, would be proud of the things I accomplished.