I Graduated Three Years Ago? Really?

It's strange to think that I graduated high school three years ago. I look back on how much has changed since then. I look back and see how much I've grown as a person. I reflect on my failures and my accomplishments. With my successes, I feel a great sense of pride. With my failures, I feel as though I have let myself down. In some ways, I have exceeded my expectations of where I hoped to be and who I hoped to be. In many ways, I have disappointed myself with what I haven't done or should have done.

At the time, being 18 seemed so hard. I never saw myself as a kid then. Rather, I saw myself as a maturing adult scared to step into the real world. Now, when I meet or run into 18 year olds, I can't help but think how childish and naive many of them are. So confident they have the real world figured out. So confident that they learned everything about reality in the safety net of high school. High school was by no means fun or care free for me. But I never realized how much of the real world was filtered. Not so much by high school but my self. In high school, it was easy to hide behind the fact you were too young to care about the things that otherwise scared you.

I wouldn't say my high school days were "simpler times." But there was some good and memorable times. I for one have moved on and let go of those years. I have met several people who still wish they were in high school, being a careless teenager, "having the time of their life." I personally can't understand why so many people carry a torch for their high school days. Being a teenager was like being an overgrown emotional 8 year old. Still a kid but still learning. Young enough to get away with stupid shit but old enough to probably know better. Reckless and arrogant. If you didn't get the person you had a major crush on, it made you sad. If your parents punished you for something, it ruined your day.

I thought of all the people who have passed through my life since my senior year recently. I thought about who had an impact on me and why. I thought about the ones who made me learn powerful life lessons. I thought of the ones who were gone as soon as the came. I thought of the ones who were in my life that left, but wished they stayed. I thought of the ones that I let go. Most of all I thought of the ones who have stayed since I left high school. The ones that still care and stayed with me through it all. I thought of all of those people and realized that much of who I am now is because of them, regardless of the result of their coming into my life.

Overall am I happy with myself? I guess I could say that. But realizing all of these harsh realities of what I have and haven't become has become a brutal reminder of how short life truly is. I wanted to do so much the first few years out of how high school. I have barely found the time or money to do many of the things I wanted to do. Being 21 seemed so far away then. When I pictured myself being 21, I pictured a young confident man. Successful. Put together. Now that I am actually 21, the only certain thing is that I am a young man. I'm still trying to put things together and I'm still trying to build the confidence to go where I want to go in life.