The time has come for the birds to leave the nest. One by one they drop. Suspended in space before their tiny wings unfurl and catch them before they hit the ground. Using the newly found appendages, they ascend into the sky and flap off into the distance. For the first time, the birds are on their own.
In a matter of weeks, seniors will be going through the same thing. We will walk across the graduation stage and receive our tickets out of here. Many of us will book it as soon as the diploma touches our fingers, while others will stay close to home. However, the emotions are mutual. A feeling of nostalgia looms over our senior class as we recall our past experiences in high school.
Finally, after four years of climbing, we reached the top of the totem pole. Reflecting on what we’ve accomplished from the top, it feels good. Really good. We have faced the dangerous mountains of Peru and slashed through the dense rainforests of the Amazon with a dull machete. We have skinned live animals with our bare hands and pierced fish with our laser eyes. These were just some of the advantages of being senior.
OK, so maybe the mountains were just papers, and the rainforest the locker bay… and those animals weren’t really alive, but pickled before we dissected them in our Zoology class. The fish were definitely in patty form, stuck between two buns, and it was definitely a fork that pierced them. Yes, we remember it clearly now. Maybe those weren’t advantages at all.
We were a quiet bunch. Things were taken in stride. We felt we didn’t need to be boisterous to make our presence known. Homecoming came, and with it a floating device was placed in the pond along and the traditional toilet papering of the school grounds were included. We were the first class that had to clean up their own toilet paper, but at least we got pizza for it (and trust me – it was better than the fish patty). Our senior prank has not even been carried out, let alone planned.
One thing we could all agree on though is we are all ready to leave the roost. The rainforests of the Amazon and those treacherous mountains have prepared us more for what comes next. Just like the baby birds we hope to emulate, we will drop from that nest one by one, and forge our own path into society. We did it. We survived – and we saved the machete for later.