I want so badly to release all of my current thoughts and ideas and emotions in ink like veins on this page but I know that tomorrow, at this rate, this and all of today will seem juvenile and I will be embarrassed at how young I seem. Which is how I usually feel. I recently turned 17 this summer, after graduating from high school one year early. One thing I can say is that I am happy in that I have always been sure of this bridge year I’m taking, but I will still be 17 when everyone turns 19. Working so hard to seem older makes this new feeling of being young immensely enjoyable and exciting.
I was twelve years old when I initially began planning my year, back when I thought the whole thing was my idea. As I attended three different high schools in three years, my reasons for sticking with it have changed as much as I have. I grew up in Los Angeles, California, and moved to San Diego after freshman year, only to return to the same house in LA early this summer. Sitting here writing this now takes me back to when I used to get lost for fun, looking forward to finding my way back to what I know from a place I’d never been. Taking this year, for me, is figuring out what I’m most interested in, and also maybe finding what I absolutely care nothing about. It is the final product of some deficiencies in my school grades. It is a vision without expectations. And finally, it is a way for me to learn quickly and passionately the intricacies of development that I have studied for so long in a purely experiential fashion removed from classroom walls which could diminish and mold my discoveries.
