It is here. It is undeniably, inextricably here. I never expected this. I never wanted this. It wasn’t in the plans. Why did it have to come for me?
Senioritis.
To be perfectly honest, I’ve had senioritis since the first day of class. I had spent my entire summer far away from Iowa City, missing my high school. But upon my return, I didn’t feel quite as I’d expected.
“Why am I here?” I thought as I looked down the familiar halls. “Who are these little children swarming everywhere? What are these 14-year-olds doing here? They have low standards. They are immature. Why should I be cooped up with them? Do I still belong?”
My classes felt far less serious than those of my junior year. The presence of younger students in certain subjects made me insecure about my level. “They are going to replace me,” I thought. “Maybe they already have.”
It hurts to become less serious about subjects that used to be important to me, things with which I used to be obsessed. Just when I’ve finally gathered enough knowledge and experience to pass it on to younger students, crossed the studential boundary from “mentee” to “mentor,” now that I have more to contribute than I ever had, all of a sudden I feel disengaged, listless.
Some things, like violin, are the same. And I’m still paying close attention in French. Calculus, too, has been an unexpectedly satisfying, albeit stressful, ride. But now that my college applications are in, and my grades no longer matter, I’m hardly listening in some of my classes. Passing the time learning German on Duolingo, daydreaming about the past and future, writing this blog while I’m supposed to be learning about Newtons. . .
“Reflect,” all of the college supplemental essays tell me. “And think: What do you want?”
How should I know what I want?
I spent my sophomore and junior years befriending and learning from seniors. I thought they were brilliant and sophisticated and talented. And they were. But I saw also they were becoming tired and bored, detaching from the high school world, already passing beyond it to a dimension, a state of being, of which I could not yet conceive. I knew they would leave me behind. I knew my classmates and I would grow to fill their places. How could I not have known, observing my predecessors, idolizing them, that this state of insipidness, of boredom, this conundrum of the first true transition towards the crux of life, would one day come for me?
I am haunted by my meticulousness, my conscientiousness, by the importance my younger self accorded to her work. I am haunted by all of the things she didn’t do, the experiences she didn’t have, the skills she didn’t learn. I am haunted by the idea that perhaps my junior year was my high school peak.
I hate the idea of not improving–or, God forbid, getting worse. It has always been my biggest fear, my most terrifying nightmare. But maybe I’ll have to save my will to improve for next year. I’m saving it up so I’ll have the energy to one day fly away, to embark upon another existence. Maybe, before I can leave this place forever, I must live.
Now, to pass the time before I have to think about saying goodbye, I might zone back in and learn about those Newtons. . . Senioritis is here, but so am I.
