When I was growing up, I always thought that I was so old. No matter what my age was, it felt like my peers and I were more mature than we actually were. But there was always some grade above us that we looked up to. There was this threshold that we were dying to make. Once we passed that threshold, we set our sights on a new one. Now it’s senior year, and I’m itching for a new goal.

From the time I started preschool, the highest grade at whatever school I was at seemed extremely alluring. I idolized the older students and tried to picture myself in their place. They seemed to have so much more fun, were respected by teachers, and, most of all, were confident.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but the main draw I saw in getting older was gaining this confidence and experience. As a younger student, it felt like my peers and I were holding our breath for when we would finally be the oldest. Now I am in my last year of high school, the year I have thought about the most. In some sense, though, this is also the year that I have blocked from my mind as much as possible. I’ve never cared much for ends.

While my last years in previous schools were exciting, senior year is just different. There’s no guaranteed “part two.” At this point, I have no idea where I will be next year and what I will be doing — and that’s a thought that scares me to death. This is why, for the most part, I had chosen not to accept that this would be my last year of high school. It wasn’t until my last first day of school that it hit me: I’m ready to move on.

All this time that I’ve been waiting and waiting to be at the very end, I knew I had something ahead of me to look forward to. Now I have no idea. I can’t just wait around until the next school year. I have to figure it all out on my own. So maybe that "confidence" I observed all these years is simply the acceptance of this foggy future. I’ve learned that it takes a lot of faith to think about something that is so hazy and out of your control.

I no longer focus my energy on fantasizing about being the oldest at school. The picture has grown a lot broader, and I’m forced to think about what exactly it is that I want. The exciting part is that I get to go for that. For the first time in my education, I have almost complete control over where I will go from here.

All of this seems fairly straightforward. Any underclassmen may be able to grasp this feeling. I myself believed I understood the desire many seniors have to leave. But it wasn’t until I was placed in this position, which I had been excited for yet dreading for years, that I fully understood the feeling that had been conveyed by students in the classes above me and, sometimes, even by my own peers.

In some ways, junior year was really the last year I truly felt like I was a part of Uni as a “high school.” While I still have a year left, I feel as if I have one foot out the door already, and I’m searching for solid ground to balance on. The year that I'd been building up in my head for the better part of my life practically disintegrated before it even began.