By Becky Ewing

Senior year was a time of epiphanies for me, because every piece of advice my parents, teachers and older sister have ever given me suddenly make sense. Earlier this year, while I was frantically applying to scholarships, I realized exactly why they always told me to take school seriously. Scholarships save so much money. If I had just paid a little more attention, my hard work would have literally paid off. Word for word my epiphany paralleled advice I’d been given every single year.

My parents always used to interrupt my stress-related breakdowns to tell me, “it’s not the end of the world; It’s just high school.” I used to think they said that because they didn’t understand. In reality, though, they totally did. They knew exactly what I was feeling. They desperately wanted to convince me this petty little drama will have no significance in a few years. However, I was so wrapped up in caring about what my others thought, that I wasted a lot of energy on pointless things instead of investing my time doing something to actually benefit my future.

Too bad it’s now too late for me to follow this advice, but my experiences in high school did give me a new appreciation for my elders. You don’t appreciate wisdom till you’re wise yourself. I always used to think I was so grown up. However, I was still treated like a child because I often acted like one. They used to tell me, “Once you mature, you’ll understand.” Looking back on the years, I realize just how much I’ve actually matured, and just like they said, now I understand.

Now I’m the one who’s begging the freshmen to take AP classes, to work hard and, most importantly, to focus on impressing yourself instead of your peers. My advice will probably go through one ear and right out the other because that’s just a part of life. I went through so much in high school, and there were times I didn’t think I’d even make it to graduation. Now that I’m finally here and I’m older, I appreciate each and every struggle I went through over the past four years, because I learned from them. They’ve made me wiser.

The entire time I was at Sherwood, I was desperately trying to figure out who I was. It wasn’t until now that I’ve accomplished that. If anything had happened differently over the past four years, I wouldn’t be the person I am today and for the first time in eighteen years, I wouldn’t ever want to be anyone else.