The “best years of our lives”

Although high school is not exactly what is broadcasted to our young primitive minds, it’s still the most important thing to us as teens. It may be for education but let’s face it, we’ve been getting that since we were five. When asking adults about the best years of their lives, I bet they don’t bring up their marks in chemistry, but the memories, mistakes and friends they made during the times they weren’t studying for that upcoming trig 2 test. The best years of their lives are the years that me and my fellow seniors will never get back. I went into the pandemic as a curious freshman, excited for all the experiences I was going to partake in. I’m now going into my last year of high school as a senior with eight friends, and a handful of mediocrely wild stories that I can tell my kids, these being the nights I got to spend in the teachers’ lounge after volunteering.

The best years of their lives are the years that me and my fellow seniors will never get back.

Now I know what I’m writing about is not the most heart-wrenching story, but for most seniors right now, they would all agree with the statement that we got robbed of our teenage years. Have it be the parties we didn’t attend, the school trips that were canceled, the after school programs that were shut down, the strangers who never turned into friends, or the friends that turned into strangers. All these things that we didn’t get involved in ultimately lead to this feeling of an endless cycle, with no way out. The school days were just filler for the week and during weekends we were either counting down the hours until the filler began again, in hopes to cure our boredom, or grasping on to every last second of the two-day weekend in order to finish those 50 advanced biology practice tests. Whatever your case was, the overall morale of the students around me was not great. I would walk around the school and see 25 per cent of the students looking happy and the other 75 per cent would walk around with their heads down avoiding any form of contact with another person because it was what we were used to. As for me I’m a part of that 75 per cent, I would walk around with my headphones in, half of me is thinking about how dumb I look walking, and the other half is thinking about all the things I’ll do once covid is gone. Although there has been a decrease in the cases, covid seems like something that will be around for quite some time. So rather moping around the school longing for the memories, friends and mistakes i’ll make once covid is over, i’ll try to make the most of the hand i’ve been dealt, i’ll try to boost morale, and flip those percentages around, because as the wise Ferris Buller once said, “Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it.”