Infant Maya Johnson plays in the fields of her hometown of Massachusetts.
Maya Johnson
"For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning." -T.S. Eliot
I’m not really a senior in high school.
I’m still 16, a struggling sophomore who just got her license and can’t wait for spring break. After finishing my fiction story about the deadly disease circulating in China, I haven’t considered what would happen if it reached me yet. Finals, graduation and college have yet to cross my mind, and I don’t have any plans for the future.
Except, I kind of do. After two years out of school, two years of doing nothing but watching movies and playing with my dogs, that same happy-go-lucky sophomore was thrown into her senior year and expected to be prepared for all of these transformations. Even though the last few years have been full of them, I still haven’t learned to roll with the punches and brace myself for something new.
But is anyone ever ready for change? We all complain about not being ready for a different life because we were faced with unprecedented times, but isn’t everyone? Life is always hard, our class just had to deal with it in an unusual way. Unfortunately, we are just as confused, unprepared and beautifully ordinary as the generations before us.
COVID-19 didn’t ruin our lives, it just gave us reason to come out stronger. No one is ever ready to begin life after high school, and our class is no exception. I may still feel like a sophomore, but so does every other graduate – and I couldn’t be prouder to know that for once in my life, I am just like everyone else.