By Rachel Tavel

When I graduated high school, I had no idea that I was about to enter the best four years of my life. I had grown up assuming that college was going to be amazing, having no idea with whom I was going to be sharing it, what I was going to be studying, or even where I was going to be once I got in somewhere (god-willing!). Nevertheless, college always dangled optimistically in front of me like a carrot on a string. I did not know what I was marching towards, but I had to trust that I would find something delicious once I got there. For most of my life, college was kept somewhat at a distance. Then one intensely humid June morning, I took off my cap and gown, asked my dad if he could hold my high school diploma while I hugged some friend's goodbye, and realized that the carrot was within reach. The summer that followed was full of excitement about the mysterious future and nostalgia for a wonderful and, perhaps more than anything, a safe and predictable past. I was hungry for a new safety net once my old one had been taken away from me, but once I took that first bite out of the carrot that had dangled in front of me for so long, I realized that much more than a carrot lay ahead.

For 12 years I went to Trevor Day School (TDS) on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It was a 17 minute walk from my apartment to school and I walked it with my best friend Lisa, who had been my best friend since first grade and remains my best friend to this day. Being one of five TDS children in my family, my last name quickly became familiar, as did every employee – from the headmaster to the custodians – in my school. By senior year of high school, I felt like I owned the place.
I was captain of the soccer team, I was a choreographer for a big dance show that the school produced, and I was known by all and liked by all the people that mattered to me.

The thing about going to the same school for 12 years is that things can become almost dangerously familiar. My graduating class was 55 students; most of the students I graduated with had been my friends since I was six years old. We grew up together, enduring the fleeting trends of snap-bracelets and eventually Dawson's Creek. I was happy.

Everything had its place and everything was in order, even if my teeth and skin were not. When my siblings and I got into fights, I would look to college as a hero that would pull me out of this stressful world, naïve about the fact that while college would bring me many answers, it would bring just as many questions.

Still, I was petrified of leaving my life as I knew it. When one is finally a senior, there is a sense of trust, predictability, and control over daily life. I felt empowered by my sudden promotion in the social hierarchy. During senior year, there is a sense of completion and achievement; an acute awareness that everyone worked so hard to get there. When it was time to graduate, I felt like I had made it. In a way, I had. But going to college made me feel like I would have to pull all the same stunts to make it work out again, and I knew it would never happen the exact same way.

This can be an overbearing concept. To be happy in a chapter in my life was a great thing, but with it comes the pressure to find that happiness again when a new chapter begins. The summer before college I cried and cried. I decided that I didn't want anything about my life to change and that I would never find the security of the place that I was being forced to leave. Luckily, most of my friends were feeling the same anxieties about starting over. When you are happy, it is impossible to imagine change being a good thing. But change is inevitable, so making it a good this is the only way to stay happy.

Eventually, the summer of tears and memories of a freshly retired childhood came to an end, and college presented itself as a new beginning. Bowdoin College was awaiting me in Maine with open arms.

During the car ride from New York to Maine, I felt like I was driving from one life to another; a new butterfly chair was poking into my shoulder while my tiny square fridge sat sturdily on the seat next to me. I wondered who my new friends would be and if I would meet a boy or find a passion for something academic that I never knew about, but all I had was questions.

Now, having just graduated from the best four years of college that I could have ever imagined, I find comfort and trust in the many questions I had during that transitional time between high school and college. Believe it or not, answers will come. I am older now, not by much age-wise but my so much experience-wise. There is no going back.

In a course about Buddhism, I learned that it is never good to cling to the past because the future, although daunting at times, is always waiting for you to one moment at a time. Friends come and go, you will change (believe it or not), but experiences last forever. Before you know it, another carrot will be dangling in front of you. While you might approach it with the same curiosity, you will have less fear.

High school can be hard to leave, but what lies ahead is your life… so go there and find out what it is all about.

>>Back To Transition Tales Articles