BELLAIRE • MEMORIAL • RIVER OAKS • TANGLEWOOD • WEST UNIVERSITY

Reflections on Senior Year

By Aliya Robertson, Westbury Christian School, School Buzz Editor | September 3, 2019

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Pictured are some WCS seniors (from left) Caleb Lueders, Uwem Okon, Kennedy Raines, Sarah Vargas, Madison White, Ivana Jones and Victoria Tillman.

The pressure of senior year has already taught me that I’m just as far from adulthood as I am childhood. Senior year is such a grey area in a person's life where their responsibilities and expectations no longer line up. I am responsible for more of my daily life than ever, but no one truly expects me to get it all right.

I see senior year as the beginning of the end and the end of the beginning.

Parents and teachers continue to ask me if I feel different or if I’m excited to be a senior? Honestly, I don’t know. I'm in the same school, with the same clothes, the same people and teachers and staff. I'm still dependent on my parents for most everything, but I also no longer have the knowledge that next year, I’ll be in the same position. Nothing feels different, yet at the same time I know everything is. I’m both too far from the threat to be able to make any drastic strategies but too close to ignore its potential damage. A quote from the song “I’m thinking about horses” by Mansionz best summarizes the emotional turmoil of going into senior year:

“I am standing on the beach watching the tsunami grow
From a minuscule rise in the horizon to a monstrous tidal wave
I am not moving, I am not scared
I am not scared, I am not wearing swimwear
I am standing on the beach waiting for the tsunami.”

Mansionz is somehow able to articulate the feeling of a sphere of calmness inside an acute sense of chaos and destruction. Yes, I see the threat before me and no, I am not prepared, but I also cannot do anymore to prepare myself than what I already have. As you grow older you begin to become more attuned with the feeling of uncertain stability, because you realize stability is, in some way, always uncertain. And that is what senior year is. Walking headfirst into a tsunami and accepting that either way you will make it out.

It may seem a bit grim but it’s the truth of the world. We never have a definite promise in life, except through God, of course. He gives us the strength to continue in life even when it isn’t the easiest. He is our courage in the face of adversity and our peace in times of trial. Personally, I know I’m not prepared for the next stage of my life, but I do know that God is prepared for all things because all things exist because of him. As long as I continue to love and trust him, I know I’ll be ok.