Goodbyes and Good Fries
I hate hanging up the phone. I’ve never watched a season finale of a TV show without shedding a tear. When I finish a book, I am overcome by a sense of loss, as if by finishing it I have betrayed the characters and ended their story with the turn of the final page. I’m not good with endings or goodbyes or anything that disrupts what was once constant in my life.
The most recent of my difficult endings was my departure from my job at McDonald’s. To those who are more sane than I (full disclosure, that’s probably most of you), leaving a job that pays minimum wage for being yelled at by the majority of the population of Newbury Park and constantly smelling like french fries seems like an easy choice. But for me, leaving somewhere I had spent approximately 600 hours presented one of my more difficult endings.
After clocking out for the last time, I struggled to bring myself to leave, walking in circles throughout the back of the restaurant, saying goodbye to people that I logically knew I would see again soon. When I finally left, I drove around, as I often do, and thought about my departure. Suddenly, the most terrifying fact hit me as I realized that I would have a much more difficult goodbye coming soon. I am going to have to graduate high school.
I know, I know, high school is seen as the most miserable time in a person’s life, except for the elite few who make the most of it. But the end of high school, much like the end of my McDonald’s career, is bittersweet.
Similar to my McJob, leaving high school means leaving behind an excess of grease, whether it be that of the fryer vats or the faces of the freshmen. The end of my McJob also means the end of a regimented schedule that I have seemingly no control over, in the way that those four dings of the bell control me now. And while these things may all be positive, with them comes the end of an era.
For McDonald’s it has been 600 hours and for high school it has been four years, but the end of high school also represents the end of childhood. It’s something we have all been dreaming of since the days of kindergarten when we were asked the age old question, “what do you wanna be when you grow up?” But as the reality comes closer and closer, the ending comes with more dread than pure excitement and possibility.
However it is this amalgam of dread and possibility that makes up all real-life endings. Even the most painful experiences, whether it be a horrible job or all of high school, have their good and bad, so rather than anticipate the ending, think of the bittersweet departure that will one day come, and try to revel in the sweet aspects, because those are the ones you will remember when you are nostalgically romanticizing the past.
And when high school finally does come to an end, think of it less as the ending of a TV series or book and more of a season finale or an installment in a series. The characters do not end their story, they merely change their plot to avoid redundancy.
