Cue the first song on my Spotify playlist from freshman year. It’s “Innocence” by Avril Lavigne. That song symbolized a new era. Freshman year was full of hope, but at the core of it all, I was afraid of losing that sense of wonder throughout my high school years. Now cue the most-played song from my junior year playlist: “Perfect Places” by Lorde. I’d play that song on my way to college visits and on the way home from school, always dreaming of “perfect places” and wondering when I’d find my own.

Senior year? The first song from my latest playlist is “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince” by Taylor Swift. Perhaps this one lyric sums up the reason why I love this song: “Because I know this is a fight that someday we’re going to win.”  

 Year after year, things changed throughout my high school prison sentence, whether it was the type of person I wanted to be, the interests I had, or the people I wanted to associate myself with. The farther I got through high school, the more I needed songs with a message of hope. One thing that stayed the same throughout the years was my music taste. Another thing that stayed the same—despite the nasty college counselors and the peer pressure around me—was my ambition.

I strode into high school as an extremely determined freshman kid, ready to conquer the world. I was armed with a confidence that can only be explained by listening to a ton of Avril Lavigne music at a very young age. I wanted a straight path that would lead me to the land of my dreams.

I didn’t know it then, but my high school journey would be anything but straight. In my sophomore year, I transferred to a private school in the area, thinking that the grass was greener on the other side of the fence. I made this decision on a whim when I should have thought it through.

I longed for an escape from everything, but what I really needed was a change of heart. A change of attitude. It wasn’t the place; it was who I was. I didn’t want to hear that at the time from anyone. I wanted perfection and wanted it fast. However, when I came back to WCHS, I understood that no place is really perfect. It’s about what you do at the places where you are.

High school was a blur of things. Senior year was different, because I thought about what I could do to make this the best year possible and then I did those things. Senior year was watching almost every Adam Driver movie I could find on the web with my siblings. It was eating Korean food at a fast-food restaurant on a random Thursday with my mom—because any day of the week deserves celebration. It was watching movies at Arclight almost twice a month, writing articles about some of them and going to Chelsea Cutler and Sasha Sloan concerts on school nights.

I’d like to give three pieces of advice to freshmen. One, trust yourself. You know yourself better than you think. Two, work as hard as you humanely can, but with a healthy balance between work and play. Three, don’t worry so much. High school’s going to end no matter how much worrying you do, so you might as well ease up. 

After committing to a college last week, I’ve reached a point where I can relax. Soon I will watch the last few seconds of my high school “movie”, roll the end credits and leave this movie theater with tremendous relief and a bag of stale popcorn.

This movie’s almost over, but the music isn’t. Even when this movie stops, and another chapter of my life starts, music will still play, tying chapters together with beautiful melody. Maybe it’s just me, but there’s always some song in my head. I believe there’s a song for every moment, for every space between colors.

This one’s for you.