I could not have imagined myself a few years ago being the person am today. Looking back, I remember how I used to look up to the people my age. The seniors were so cool. They were the ones who had it all together. I couldn’t wait ’til I was a senior and just like them. It just didn’t seem real that I could ever be like that. In my eyes, I saw them as perfect. Everything just fell into place for them. They had the car, they played the perfect game, and they were graduating. It wasn’t a particular graduating class, it was every year’s seniors. I watched the classes ahead of me all take their turn. Each year I came one step closer, never really believing I would ever get there.

Now that I am a senior, it still does not seem real. It doesn’t feel at all as I thought it would. The truth is that the seniors are really no different from the rest of the students. We are all still stressing about grades, having the car comes with a price, and playing sports is still only for a few. Mom and Dad are still sticking to the curfew idea, and we feel as lost in the world as we did a few years ago. The idea of leaving our cozy home and going to a strange college doesn’t seem as exciting as it used to. It now seems like a scary dream. It is something I want, yet fear.

I am in shock. My body feels numb. I am left wondering when I will reach this dream life. I can’t help but question what the seniors ten years ago were really like. Did they really have it as together as I thought? Were they as perfect as I pictured them as? Or did I admire people who were actually no different from me? I wonder, “Do the younger kids look up to us, the seniors, as I used to?”

Am I going to live my whole life waiting to reach a point, imagining my life perfect when I get there, and then have reality kick in? I know one thing for sure: growing up is scary. I used to think seniors didn’t get scared, but the fact is they do. I am more scared now than I have ever been. I am scared I will no longer have someone there to catch me when I fall, no one to tell me it is just the wind, and I can’t just pretend to be grown up. I will be.