It’s our turn for decision-making

“Be careful what you wish for.” Never did I think the age-old adage would ever mean as much to me as it does now. I wrote, back in December, about how time seemed to be at a standstill. Each day seemed to blur into the next one, as I and other high school seniors across the country waited anxiously for one thing … college acceptances.

Now it’s April and I feel like I’d do almost anything to go back to that time of blissful unknowing. Once I submitted my applications in November, it was kind of comforting to know that the decision was out of my control for a while. I had done all that I could do and there was nothing left to do but wait. Sure I was impatient, religiously checking for letters and refreshing my inbox, but I was happy because I had something to wait for.

Now I don’t.

I have heard back from every single school to which I applied. I have their answers, and now the only answer I’m looking for is my own. It’s liberating and somewhat scary to know that the choice I make is entirely my own. We’ve spent the past 17 years in a safe bubble of routine, knowing our neighborhoods like the back of our hands: how long it takes to walk to our friend’s house, where to find the best slice of pizza and the exact date Ralph’s Ices reopens in the spring.

Up until now, the decision of where to go to college has been the most important decision we will make. We make choices every day. We choose what toppings to put on our frozen yogurt or whose house to go to on the weekends. Do these choices matter to us? Yes. Do they set our lives on their future course? No.

I guess the scariest thing about all of this is not necessarily making a choice, as much as making the right choice. The past few weekends for most seniors have been devoted to visiting colleges in an attempt to narrow our list of possibilities. We return from these weekends feeling a little older, a little more mature and then suddenly we are thrust back into the routines of high school, reminding us that we are not quite there yet.

We factor in campus life, the weather, college towns and academics as we carefully weigh our decisions. We want to go to the colleges that put us on the best path for our futures, whose apparel we are proud to where around town and where we will enter a new stage of our lives.

As that May 1 decision deadline approaches, we take into account that next school year we will be on our own, in an entirely new place with entirely new choices to make. This one decision we make in the next month will not change the course of our lives forever, but it will lead us down the road of growing up, and more importantly, the road to the rest of our lives. Soon decisions will be in, and seniors, triumphantly and timidly, will be out.