It was a perfectly normal day, which turned out to be extraordinary. The park by my old elementary school is the place I usually go to when I need to get away. Whether I'm upset, extremely bored, or I just need somewhere to think, the park is my place.
About a week ago, I was having kind of a rough day. I had just broken up with the idea of love, and I was just so sick of the way I'd been living and the things I'd been doing. Mediocrity had never been something I strived for, and yet I was achieving it day after day by neglecting to be extraordinary. My case wasn't horrible, of course, but just "off" enough to bother me.
So I went to the park. After wandering about for a bit, I found myself climbing that one good tree, cracking open my notebook, clicking my pen, and letting my thoughts go.
Prior to this, I had been thinking a lot about the different chapters of my life's story. The first chapter from birth to when I moved to Utah was full of vague memories and good times. The elementary school chapter follows, with friends and fun and little-kid-projects and dreams and playdates and a huge life ahead of me. Next came the junior high chapter, and then the chapter consisting of my high school years. I thought that in some ways, I am still the same character from all the previous chapters of my life. I've got friends and drama and extracurriculars and dreams and dates and a big life ahead of me. But the thoughts I had been thinking as of late were all focused on moving on, leaving the high school chapter behind--something the Real Brittney would never dream of doing.
"I'm only eighteen, but already I feel old," I wrote one day in my journal. "High School Brittney is about to be reborn as College Brittney, and I couldn't be more impatient for change."
Change, change, change. For a long time--a few weeks at the least--I had been almost angry that I was still in high school, still dealing with high school problems and high school drama and a high school mindset. I wanted OUT. I wanted a new school, a new house, a new group of friends, and a new life. I wanted change. I kept slacking off in the most mundane of ways--not getting up in the morning, not caring about doing my homework, etc. Senioritis and a lack of drive had taken over my life, but all of that changed (or at least started to) when I sat in that tree in the park.
There I realized, practically in a sudden burst of inspiration, that the way I had been living was preparing my high school chapter for a cliffhanger ending. After three years of hard work and of exciting new experiences. After three years of sorrows and joys and frustrations and triumphs, I was about to end my senior year as if it were the climax of a novel: in high tensions, incomplete goals, and unanswered questions.
Maybe in a book, I figured, this adds excitement. It makes readers turn page after page, searching for the resolution to the plot, the happy ending to the story. Knowing that things might very well go wrong for the characters is half the fun of reading, because you also know that no matter what, no book would ever dare to leave you hanging for long. But in real life, cliffhanger endings aren't exciting at all. There is so much more at stake, because you don't know for sure that no matter what, things will turn out alright. You hope they do, and you try to live in a way that would allow them to, but twists in your life's plot happen on their own. And there is no reason to complicate the story by extending the resolution. This is what I had been doing by not enduring to the end. I figured everything would be fine if I could just skip past the end of my high school chapter.
But the thing is, high school was never meant to be the climax of a person's life. There is so much more to learn, to experience, to love, to cry through and to smile through. Life is a storybook, but with a very different kind of plot than we learn about in English.
Coming to terms with all of this while sitting in a tree, I had one of those, "look at me go!" moments. I wrote,
"The moment I step down from this tree will be the moment I begin the challenge to endure to the end. I will not end my high school chapter with a cliffhanger ending. While yes, I have only a few weeks left, and yes, I cannot wait for everything to change, I've decided not to discard the life I currently have to sit around waiting for the one I'll receive in the short future. While I'm ready to move on, I think I've reached the point where I'm okay to stay for a while."
The moral of the story is that things will change for me. Soon. But right now, things are the way they are, and I have only five weeks left of my senior year. Five weeks, five short paragraphs in which to conclude what has been the best chapter of my life so far. The very best. And I'm not about to skip to the ending before I fill every page of the time allotted me. I've got five weeks to go, four band performances to do, three AP classes to finish, two best friends to help me through, and one goal: to endure to the end.
And all of this, from walking to the park and sitting in a tree. Who knew? It was probably the best idea I've had in quite a long time. :)
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