Graduation Blues

Even though I'm not a senior (yet), I'm getting the graduation blues anyway. Let me explain.

When the 8h graders graduated middle school and went into the grown up world of high school, it was okay with all the 7th graders because we'd be joining them again in a year when we got to high school too. It was just a year of abandonment by our older friends before we all reunited into one big force again.

But now as high school comes to a close for the class of 2008, while they're all saying "Finally!" I'm saying, "... already?" These three years have flown by and I'm not ready to let a lot of people go. This is because I know that I won't be following them to the next stage in life like I did before. This is going to be the final and permanent seperation of the class of 2008 and the class of 2009.

After high school, members of the classes before us and the classes after us will disperse all across the state, even across the country. As I look through the end-of-the-year issue of the Torch at who is going where, it makes me sad that I know so many people and they're going somewhere I know I won't be going. In this category are the people electing to go to a state school and those who are going out of state for opportunities bigger and better than the ones they can find in Iowa.

And all this makes college more real in a way that I know that I really won't know most of the people I'll be learning next to once I graduate. But more than anything, it makes me sad to know that in only a week, there are people I won't see again except on Facebook or in remembering the good ol' times of high school (or the not so good ol' times, but memorable moments nonetheless).