Life is a precious gift. It is a gift that I take for granted. I waste my days anxious, worried, and stressed over small things. I am anxious about a certain class, worried whether or not I look good enough for the high standards of today’s society, and stressed about how my life will turn out. Every day I look at the clock countless times waiting for lunch, and anticipating dismissal. I wish the school week would go by faster so Friday will be here sooner. I can’t wait to get out of school and go home. As I wish for all of that, I am also wishing time away I will never get back. I will never go back to the days I would play with my sister on the swing set outside in the spring after a long day of school. I will never go back to the day I got my first 100 on a test in elementary school. I will never relive my first day of freshman year at Bay View, meeting all my new teachers that would help me succeed and all the new students that would soon become my best friends. I will never go back to when I celebrated my sixteenth birthday with friends and family. As I wish this time to move faster, I also want it to slow down. I am wishing away time with my friends, and I am wishing away time with my family. Sometimes I just want everything to slow down.

Soon, all my time will be spent looking and applying to college. I will be moving away from home and starting a new chapter in my life, with only memories of high school and my childhood. I want to be able to live in the present instead of dwelling on the past, or anticipating the future. That future will by my future. It will be here before I know it. I will wake up one day and my childhood will be gone. I will be gone from my home, where I grew up. I will be away from my younger sister who has looked up to me all these years, and my parents who I have looked up to. I will be away learning and studying. I will be away from the people and places I know and love.

From experiences in my life I have seen things come and go. Relationships end and people move on. Arguments are forgotten, and people are forgiven. The clock keeps ticking away, making yesterday a memory I may forget tomorrow. Yesterday is my past, today is my present and tomorrow is my future. Right now my only wish is for time to stop, so I can take a deep breathe, close my eyes and remember these last few moments I have here. All of my memories will be in the back of my mind, never forgotten.