My Journey: A Cautionary Tale
I am flawed, everyone is. This is my journey, a reflection focusing on my time here at North Middlesex but also one of my life through this time as a whole.
Senior year is something many of us, myself included, have been looking forward to for a very long time. I have lived here in Townsend my entire life, I attended Spaulding Memorial and Hawthorne Brook prior to my tenure here at the high school. To be honest, the prospect of graduating makes me emotional. This district, this school, and these people have been all I have ever known. Altogether across 3 schools and 57 different classes, I have had 39 different teachers, and an uncountable number of friends, and peers. Every single one of them has left an impact on my life, they have shaped me into the person I am today. Impact is the central subject of this tale.
Me playing the contrabass clarinet, because I thought it was cool.
My experience in high school is something that I reflect on with mixed feelings. If I were to rewind the clock and do it all over again I would most certainly do many things differently, which I will elaborate on momentarily, but that isn’t to say that I wouldn’t change many others.
I would be naive to say over the past 4 years I haven’t become “popular” and I wouldn’t exactly call myself discrete. My vocal projection is comparable to Mr. Sullivan and doing the morning announcements everyday doesn’t exactly allow me to fly under people's radar. Coming out of the pandemic and a long year of online school, I was eager to come back to the classroom and make new friends my freshmen year. As everyone was still armed with masks I felt it was pertinent to be just a little bit “extra” to show people I had more than a shred of personality. I look back fondly on this time, I enjoyed the unknown of meeting new people. Many of them are among my closest friends today- 4 years later.
To make my high school experience make sense though I first need to provide some context. I am the Rho Kappa President, Student Council Vice President, Yearbook Editor, NMPress Editor, Colorguard Captain, Theater Tech Crew, Garden Club member, play in the Groton Hill Wind Ensemble, have a part time job for 20 hours a week, and some more miscellaneous things which are not not important, but not necessary to include. To be clear this isn’t a flex, or something to admire. This is not something anyone should subject themselves to. This is exactly what not to do.
Many days I would show up at school as early as 6:30am and not leave until 9 or 10 pm at night. Many others I would leave school, go home to eat, then immediately jet off to work. I can confidently say that over the past 4 years I have spent more time outside of my house than in it. Anyone who sits behind me in any of my classes can probably vouch for me by saying that I spend more than half the time in class on my laptop doing something completely unrelated for another random side quest that I managed to get myself involved in. As I’m writing this very paragraph I’m in AP Stats not entirely certain of what Mr. Thompson is talking about.
I can confidently say that I enjoy doing every single one of my activities; I found community in all of them. So many people I never would have met, memories I never would have made, achievements never got came from these activities. But nothing comes without a cost, and there is always a sacrifice.
My atrocious calander. This isn’t even the worst.
Doing so much has made me lose touch with people I care about. My schedule for the past 3 years could be described as everything under the sun that is synonymous with stupid. I've missed out on so much of the quintessential high school experience to the point of my friends scheduling things around me. The term ‘day off’ is foreign to my vocabulary. Having to be locked in for weeks at a time is inadequately described as stressful. The life I lead has presented me with great physical and emotional strain, and--not to be dramatic but--most significantly a void in my soul that I have yet to be able to fill thus far.
I’m not ignorant as to why I feel the way I do. It’s rather simple in fact. I can’t give anything the full attention and treatment it deserves when I have 18 other things going on and despite this I still strive for perfection in everything I do. This fundamental incompatibility is what has led me to where I am today.
I don’t do anything out of blind ambition. I’ve always strongly rejected the notion of doing something simply to check a box on the college application. I would be lying if I said I didn’t fall into that trap at times, but what I have found was that when you do there is a lack of authenticity, and a lack of pride. In every event I plan, hoodie I design, program I make, concert I play, game I shoot goes a piece of me. Barely anything I do is for me. My philosophy has always been to leave an impact on people. Leaving an impact means putting everything you have into whatever it is you are trying to accomplish.
If I were to do it all again, I wouldn’t. I would let some opportunities go. During freshmen orientation I received a piece of advice that has stuck with me, paraphrased of course:
“Never leave right after school. Join anything and everything you can. Spend every day doing something.”
Looking back. I wouldn’t pass this along. After all, it did sort of get me into a bit of a mess.
This experience is truly once in a lifetime. For some, it is something they don’t look back fondly on, but for me it is something I truly believe I will never forget. If I had to tell a freshmen what they should do during these precious 4 years, I would tell them to leave an impact. And you don’t need to be a part of all 4 honor societies, every club, class president, and valedictorian to do so. It doesn’t matter how big or small it is.
Remember the upperclassman who gives you rides to and from school. Remember your first new friend in this unknown place. Remember their impact. Something that might seem so insignificant can mean so much, all it takes is to be “Be Human” (coining Jay Resmini for that one).
As previously iterated, everything comes at a cost, just don’t let that cost become too much to bare.