Title wave

Modern adolescence is a giant wormhole that swallows your sense of reality and morality. I’m 18 and four weeks away from graduating high school. It feels like I’ve been waiting an eternity for this moment, but the closer it gets, the more I want it to be farther away.

It’s like a juxtaposition — so contradicting it’s almost ironic.

No one expects you to know what you want. Hell, even adults don’t know what they want. But every time I start something new, I never master it. Jack of all trades, master of none. It’s a small flaw of mine, but there are just too many new things to try. I want to be old one day and tell my kids that their father surfed the ocean on Mount Everest holding a coconut, with a tan and wired headphones, listening to Queen.

That would be absolutely epic.

So yeah, I have a long bucket list. And girls aren’t on it.

At my school, social dilemmas have been spreading like wildfires, but it’ll all be over soon. Who would’ve known that liking a girl is like being interrogated by the CIA about what I ate for breakfast? It’s nice until they ask me what my goals are or what college I’m going to. That’s like asking R2-D2 to use a lightsaber. He can’t.

Or can he?

Trick question. But the bottom line is, I’m still figuring that part out.

Most nights I’m at the local LA Fitness, getting terrorized by old men changing while I’m just trying to fill up my water bottle. But for the most part, I find my peace there. There’s something calming about being in a place where nobody knows you. Unlike school, where people already have opinions about you and stories about you that you never even wrote.

Especially senior year.

That’s another reason I’m excited to graduate — it feels like a fresh start. I don’t think too far into the future as much as I should, but I do have a summer job lined up. I’m proudly licensed to give you mouth-to-mouth. Yes, I’m a lifeguard.

I love my job because of my coworkers and the pool. But I’m getting new coworkers this year, so I’ll have to use my ingrained charm to hustle some pennies.

As worried as I might sound about the future, I don’t let it consume me. High school graduation night is a pivotal moment in an adolescent’s life, and I’m ready for what’s next. Probably community college.

But that’s fine. It means I’ll have more time to learn a new hobby and cross another box off my bucket list. I was thinking of learning the harp.

Deciding things has always been spontaneous for me.

In my English class, we’re reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and right now Hamlet has decided he’s ready to kill his uncle. Lately, whenever I think about making decisions, I catch myself wondering: What would Hamlet do?

Would he choose Fruit Loops or Cheerios?

No, all jokes aside, I’m going to start making more meaningful decisions without losing that spontaneous thrill factor. A deeper meaning is out there — maybe inside the cap and gown, maybe inside the diploma. But walking across that stage isn’t just getting a certificate with my name on it.

To me, it’s freedom.

Freedom to pursue my dreams without the ball and chain of a GPA or some perfect path that everyone expects me to follow.

And for the first time, I think I’m ready to let go and see who I become when the world finally stops telling me who I’m supposed to be.