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The Walls That Watched Us Grow



 As we now enter the month of may, I think it's best to use this platform to address stuff that almost all rising seniors are feeling—college, moving away, new chapters, beginnings and definitely endings that are lurking in the corner. So, for the next post this summer lets take a break from philosophy and dive into some more real feelings that linger in our minds.

Obviously, with the college applications season approaching on August 1st it has been a wild ride writing supplements and essays—researching schools and being surprised at how much I love a school that was never on my radar. Strangely, this whole process of writing essays has been the most profound way I've started to learn more about myself on both an academic and personal level.


I genuinely need to appreciate the US college system with how its admissions are structured—forcing you out of the robotic movements over the past 4 years and making you reflect on the bigger purpose as to why you put in that effort in the first place. It is almost surreal how we are all at the end of the finish line so fast. Wasn't it just yesterday we were all excited about being freshman in high school? This time next year I'd have already committed to a college where I'm imagining myself spending the next 4 years of my life.


College, oh how big of a word and distant did it seem? Can you believe that all the ‘09s will be turning 18 next year? This will be our last year as kids, yet I can't find much of a difference between me and the thirteen year old who thought 12th grade was unattainable.


I look at my old room, or the books I read when I was thirteen, and it feels like I’m looking at a ghost who doesn't know she's about to inherit my life. We are the same, yet I am carrying four years of memories she hasn't even dreamt of yet. 


It hits you in the chest suddenly, that the life you knew till now isn’t even the beginning. How forever at home will turn into maybe visits every year. The walls that watched you grow up will now stare at the empty desk with no one to turn on the light. It is only wishful thinking to hope for every chapter to last, but without it coming to an end we will never see the next; and the cycle continues. 


"There are people who forget what it's like to be 16 when they turn 17. I know these will all be stories someday. And our pictures will become old photographs. We'll all become somebody's mom or dad" - Charlie, Perks of Being a Wallflower


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