The day that changed my life

For years in my life graduating from High School had been a date circled in my mind. For me graduating High School meant I could then do whatever I wanted to do without anyone telling me right from wrong. As I got older I began to realize that everything I had thought before was now totally wrong. I realized that graduating High School meant I was going to have to be more responsible there I ever had before. It now made me realize that I had to become an adult and becoming an adult meant that I could not do whatever I wanted like I had thought and hoped before.

On the morning of graduation day I woke up to a nice hot breakfast that was made by my dad. My mood was somewhat altering between being happy and upset. When I saw my mom that morning she looked sad and also like she had been crying because this big day had finally come. My mother had always told me before that when it came time for me to graduate she would be devastated. My mom is a very emotional person so of course she was pretty devastated all day leading up to the ceremony. What made my mom sad about the day was that I was her oldest child.

The day was going to be busy, cleaning and straightening up the house, since we were hosting a pre graduation dinner at my house for all of my family members that were going to be attending the graduation later that evening. A few hours of cleaning the house for the dinner went by when I decided to just sit back and relax and think about the huge step in life that I would soon be taking. I sat around thinking about all my grade school years and all the friends that I had met and realized that my high school years were about to be over and finished with.

As the time kept getting closer and closer the thought of graduating was beginning to strike a bit of fear within me. I had taken all of my high school years for granted. I never took time to think about what I was going to do with my life after school. Now that it was coming to an end I began to regret not taking advantage of my high school years to help out my future. It was like I was beginning a new life and that this old one would soon be forgotten. After lunch I had graduation practice at the gym.

During practice I could see the excitement on the faces of my classmates. I was thinking to myself if I was the only one that feared graduation. After practice we took pictures and while waiting a few friends and I began talking about the day that was ahead of us. We began talking about how crazy the feeling was; that this sacred day had finally come upon us after years and years. We talked about how much fun we had together in our senior year. We talked about all the fun memories and how they would never happen again.

After talking for a while I saw that I was not the only one fearing this major step in our lives. A few of my classmates even said aloud that they were scared. We knew we now had great expectations right in front of our eyes. We knew that this was going to be the last time that we were all together so we decided that we had to make the best of graduation and have an outrageous night at the graduation after party that was taking place at the Civic Center. After graduation practice I headed back over to my house since the company would be arriving in a while.

We eat some posole when all the family started had finally arrived. Throughout the dinner my family members gave me graduation gifts and told me how proud of me they were. Throughout the party all I could think about was graduation. The time was so close that I became nervous and sick to my stomach. I could no longer wait for the ceremony to start. I wanted it to be over with so that these negative thoughts I was having would be gone. I headed back to the gym at around 5. When I arrived at the gym I now noticed that most of my classmates were nervous just like I was.

We could hear the gym filled with everyone’s family members as we waited in the hallway underneath the bleachers. When the graduation finally started my stomach suddenly drop. I started shaking as we began to make our way through the gym to our seats. Seeing all the people packed in the gym taking pictures made me nauseous. I closed my eyes and pulled myself together when I finally reached my seat. I started feeling better as the graduation went on. Halfway through the ceremony pictures of the students were being shown, a few tears came to my eyes when mine came up.

Thinking about how much I had matured over the years made me realize how fast life is and that I could no longer take anything else for granted again. The fear that had been within me all day had eventually turned into a lifelong lesson. I learned that High School was not supposed to be just fun and games; it is a building block for the person you set out to be in life. If I could do it all over again I would take high school a lot more serious then I had before and use it to actually help myself out for my future. Unfortunately, doing this over is not possible so I am stuck with the choices that I made.