By the time I began my senior year at LAHS, I believed that (for the most part) I had things figured out — that I had found everything I was interested in, knew where I wanted to go to college, and _. So when I was late to third period on the first day of school because of construction, the idea that I didn’t even know my campus as well as I thought I did unnerved me. It was the first of many things this year that reminded me just how little I know — and the beginning of an important lesson to embrace what I don’t. 

When I moved to the Bay Area in third grade, it felt like I was already behind in a lot of ways. Everybody else had been playing soccer since they were two, or could code circles around me on Scratch. However trivial those things were, it gave me a sense of urgency to define myself. 

Upon starting high school, I was brimming with questions about who I was going to be and what I was going to do, pushing me to explore what LAHS had to offer. I can’t quite pinpoint the moment I stopped asking questions and started hyperfocusing on the answers (I am a field hockey player, I am a writer), but it is clear in retrospect how closed off I became to the possibility of additions to my life. I try my best to not “would’ve, could’ve, should’ve”, but it’s hard to imagine the personal growth and I might have missed because I was busy limiting myself. 

I found myself going into senior year holding the misguided belief that I had already befriended everyone I was compatible with. I wanted to be “done,” to define myself and my senior year with the people I was already friends with because I wanted to clearly delineate who I was. But, thankfully, on the very first day of senior year, a chance encounter blew those expectations out of the water, and I met some people who I now can’t imagine my high school experience without. They are a reminder to not close myself off to new experiences or people because your best friend or favorite high school memory might be right around the corner. Allowing people to surprise me has made this year my favorite one yet: I’ve experienced people that have been in my classes since elementary school step outside the boxes I had drawn them into and people I’d never met to make me rethink how I view myself.

I still have to proactively work on remaining open to new things, because it is sometimes all too comfortable to just say “no.” That might look like putting myself out there to ask a new class friend to hang out or picking up a pickleball racket for the first time during lunch. It might go terribly — but it might also be a reminder that it is never too late to keep an open mind.