There’s this niche, underground movie trilogy, it’s called High School Musical. If you’ve never seen it you’re missing out on some spectacular cinema. It’s about these really dramatic kids as they learn about navigating relationships, balancing extracurriculars, and making the most of what they have in high school. The student body is incredibly talented and good-looking, which is fitting to us. And they communicate emotions and key plot points in catchy songs, which if you know the quadratic formula song you know songs are the most effective way to memorize anything. Anyway, I recently watched the third film, called High School Musical: Senior Year and I thought that’s us. And since we all know how realistically Hollywood portrays high school and high schoolers, my throughline is that this movie trilogy represents three major points of change.
Point 1: Entering high school. It’s the start of something new. Just as the students of East High, that’s the name of the high school, learned to see their peers as complex individuals—where a jock can bake scones, a brainiac can pop and lock, a skater can play the cello—we eroded the sedimented versions of one another from middle school and allowed ourselves to cultivate new growth. We discovered new passions and got involved in clubs, sports, and committees, many, many committees. Shout out to AACTIVE, WOCC, bridge to bridge, even though that didn’t exist this year, the field hockey team, and the lacrosse team for all being spaces that have defined me outside of the classroom, brought me joy, and proven that the status quo is non-existent. Even when we were a mess, nothing was harmonized, our choreography was off beat, and our directors quit on the job, we learned how to seek out ourselves as individuals and thrive as a collective. And I say this directly to my peers and friends: I am in wonder at your compassion, ambition, and talent. And you have given so much to this school, so I want you to remember that the school needs us more than we need it.
Point 2: The fate of the real world merges with the fate of our world. Just as the students of East High took their crappy jobs and made the most out of their summer by relying on and supporting each other, we learned to work with the state of the world as best we could. And we continue to find ways to work this out. We found our own moments of joy: like waking up at 8:30 for an 8:30 class, eating lunch whenever we wanted, staying in our pajamas the whole day, or watching your friend laugh on the screen after you text them. But we also couldn’t have functioned without the teachers, faculty, and parents who kept us motivated, helped us grow creatively and intellectually, and worked to make us feel like we mattered. We all learned to love and empathize with one another a little more because we were forced to appreciate distance. And perhaps the adaptation and change from what was familiar and the isolation from those we knew and were used to seeing every day was a form of preparation for what’s to come.
Point 3: Senior Year–9 months of change. According to High School Musical: Senior Year, this year is defined by college, prom, and moving on, which I guess hits all the token words and phrases. But the platitudes that High School Musical: Senior Year left me with–such as in high school we define ourselves as we choose or don’t be afraid to leave behind what’s familiar because you can hold onto your memories forever–they were severely unsatisfactory, because you know that once the credits roll nothing in the movie matters for the characters. Because they are just characters, stuck in a loop, in a story about high school. For us, though, we must carry the weight of our decisions and experiences from the last four years for the rest of our lives. And we only learn high school is a defining period of our lives in hindsight. That uncertainty and reinvention we’re approaching is daunting because we’re so familiar with this script, we’re so comfortable in adolescence. But what makes reality so much better than the movies is that we get to continue to learn. We continue to learn how to trust and love ourselves and others. We continue to learn our limits. Our limit for how little sleep we need to function, how many hours before a due date we can start our assignment and still pass, how much we can put on our plates before burning out. But we have reached our limit at this school. We can replay it in our heads but we can’t experience it like the first time and we can’t relive it. When this scene closes I hope it doesn’t leave you disappointed, but I hope it leaves you a little melancholy and nostalgic. Because if you’re sad that means there has been something or many things spectacular and joyful and good. Because look at all these people that you’ve come of age with, that care about you, that you love and that you’ll miss. So, with courage, embrace the end as sad, but not as wholly sad, but as the start of the next fantastic thing. Because we tend to let sadness overwhelm us and joy pass us by, we need to make the time to celebrate every extraordinary thing about high school that you remember in this moment and all the extraordinary things that come your way in the future. Thank you.
