I’m scared.

I’m scared that, my friends will go, just like that.

Poof. Gone. Out of my life, and me out of theirs.

Life moves too fast. In reality, it requires the actual experience to understand the meaning of the phrase, “It felt like it was yesterday…”. The realization of this only hit me recently.

Day one, walk into class, new school. I had only changed schools once in the past, so I wasn’t that competent when it came to meeting new people. Unfamiliar faces fill up most of the desks. Each gathers into their own circle of friends, showing faces of excitement and sharing summer events. I look around for others in some similar situation, but it seems that the other newcomers had grouped together already.The few people got transferred with me from my last school don’t share any periods with me. I don’t pay much attention as the teacher begins to recite the annual class syllabus that everyone forgets about within the first month. My mind drifts off to my old friends from my last school, and how much I already miss them. Soon my head overflows with memories of having fun while working together and all the other times we went out together to do miscellaneous things. They live too far from me now to do that often.

I silently lower my head.
It feels like everything is moving so fast, and I'm just left behind. As the school years go on, I don’t feel any more mature. I remember, about a month ago Joe told received a scholarship and a tour to the college he plans to go to. Tony got a job to start saving up money for college. Other friends earned their drivers permit over summer. And here I am, feeling like a clueless child with no plan about the future in a room full of aspirants. Even as overheard their conversations, I could hear their discussions about colleges and jobs. Some of the expressions on some of the faces in the room show hard determination.

I'm scared of the future. I'm scared of growing up. Things like: what college am I going to, what am I going to study, and what am I going to do for the rest of my life absolutely terrify me, because I don't know. It feels like everybody here already knows what they want to do. Dan wants to be a musician. Mike is going to go out of state in order to become a molecular biologist. She plans to study overseas. Me? I found doing graphic design in one project interesting . That’s the only bit I know about myself.

The outlook on the future doesn’t seem to be very welcoming either. I’ve heard of stories about growing older. They say that you lose relationships with people. Everyone becomes busy with their own life and it gets difficult to make new friends. When people want to hang out, you have to plan months in advance on your one free day, and then some problem comes up and has it cancelled. On any other day, it’s just spending countless hours in a cubicle or some other mundane job. Maybe you have something more interesting to do besides paperwork, but then it’s still just that until 67, retire, and then watch television because you don’t have the strength to do anything else. This is why I’m so scared. I absolutely hate the feeling of loneliness.

The school year goes on. I try to keep my connections with my old friends through social networks, but some of my closest friends seem to be so far away now. A couple of people are consistent throughout my classes, but the connection feels shallow with them. I’ll probably have some new experiences with them later. I keep thinking about this, though, about meeting new people and then what happens after.
It doesn’t seem fair to me. They’ve played such a large part in my story and set up a path for the future, it seems unjust to just leave them without any thanks. I don’t want to just leave them as a conversational filler that I might tell my children or co-workers. The degree of how insulting I believe it is to have someone with such an important role in one’s life to be left as a “childhood memory” without giving them thanks feels honestly disrespectful to them.

I don’t want to, but I suppose that’s how it’ll go. It’s the contradictory feelings of memories: the happiness that was when they happened, and the overwhelming sadness that all of it is in the past now. This shows in some of my elementary school friends. Occasionally, I bump into someone I was once close to, and then it seems like they’re an entirely different person. The thought of this brings up painful feelings inside. Still, I wish I could show them in some shape or form my appreciation towards my old buds.

It’s the end of the school year. Everyone is stressing for finals, but still packed and ready with excitement for summer. Here I am, simply reminiscing about the past. The fear about the future is still there, but at this point I have no choice but to accept it and live on with my life. Even if I don’t get to hang out with my friends as much as I’d like, the times that when I can hang out with them only becomes more enjoyable. Maybe, when I finally truly grow up one day, and look back at the past, I’ll wonder what I was so worried about.