It’s kind of hard for me to grasp the concept that the people I have been surrounded by for almost my whole life will be people that I will most likely never see again. I’ve grown up with all of these people, and they are all familiar to me. In one short year, everything will be completely different, and all of the people I know now will be on their own path in life.
The song “Rivers and Roads” by The Head and the Heart says “a year from now, we’ll all be gone, all our friends will move away. They’re going to better places, but our friends will be gone away.” Whenever I hear those lyrics, it really hits me, and makes me realize that all of the friends I have now will be continuing on with their lives and our paths will all go their own way. Some will go to college, some will go straight to work, and some will even go to the military. It’s something so foreign to me; I’ve never experienced that type of change in my life. Later in the song, it says “rivers and roads, rivers and roads, rivers till I reach you.” And it makes me think about the fact that we will all be rivers and roads away from each other, and our paths could cross maybe one day in the future. Life is extremely unpredictable, but I know that things will all work out in favor of what a person wants; if they want it bad enough.
Now that I am about a month into my senior year, I have been starting to realize that all of this year will be my last time going through the motions of “back to school”. Of course there is college to look forward to for me, but knowing that this is my last year in school as a child gives me a feeling I can’t really put my finger on. It’s extremely exciting, but also terrifying to me. Change is inevitable, and it will happen regardless of what I think the future will look like. It will be interesting to see how I handle it all.
I know that I am going to make the most out of this whole year, and take every good opportunity when it comes my way. And when the time comes, rivers and roads will be the distance I have from my friends I’ve known forever, but it will also be the way I can connect back to them.