The Great “Now What” Before The Great Big World

Bailey Nolen - Print Editor

With the end of the first semester quickly approaching, it is starting to feel a little too real that this is it for the seniors. This is the last year of high school, the last year of Friday Night Lights, the last year of Blue Jean Fridays, the last year of being a kid. Lots of lasts happening before the firsts begin. 

With all the excitement comes this other feeling. This other feeling that no one really told me about or prepared me for. This “Now what?” feeling. This feeling of a great big pause placed on you, on what happens next. The time is going by, but you are just waiting. And waiting… and waiting. 

A big part of the “Now what?” is the pressure. The “Now what?” can feel like there is something that needs to get done. Like there must be a to-do list that you forgot to pick up. The college applications are done, but enrollment is not open yet. “Now what?” For some, the path is clear. But for others, there is the fog of the “Now what?” surrounded by the fog of “I just don’t know.” It feels like yesterday that we were having Walk to School days at DIS, but now we are faced with the stark reality that our Senior Walk is not that far away anymore. 

One of the weirdest things I have felt recently during my “Now what?” is the realization that all of those cool, older seniors are us. Those big kids that I would look up at and admire are us. That little me does not feel that far away, like no time really passed at all. That realization hits like a rock. Now, I cherish the lockers closing, the slow internet and Chromebook bugs, the “Great Day to be a Trojan” announcements and even the slow walkers in the hallway a little more because I know that I will blink and we will be throwing our caps in the air. 

Even with all of this uncertainty and bittersweet nostalgia, there is also this overwhelming excitement and anticipation in the “Now what?” This pause that can feel so daunting might just be exactly what we need. Use the pause, use the “Now what?” to create whatever version of you it is that you want to become.

The answers will come, the fog will clear and the “Now what?” will become the “Now, this is it.”