Damilola Graciella Olabisi, Freshman, Guest Writer
This photo was taken on the fifth day of my freshman year. After going to the office to get a locker, I was handed a lock, one that I didn’t know how to open. The directions for opening the lock were written on the back, along with the combination. I glanced at the outstretched hand with confusion written on my face, and the office lady offered to help. She displayed to me how the lock would loosen if she followed the instructions, but it didn’t. Before she was able to open it, she had repeated the process twice more, by this point the directions had been completely forgotten. I went to class with a sealed lock weighing my bag down, waiting for me to unseal it.
Becoming a freshman is like having the instructions handed to you only to find out that they mean nothing. It’s like gridlock. In eighth grade, you have a vision of what high school will be like, the friends you’ll make, the classes you’ll have, and when you get here it’s so extremely overwhelming. The friends you once had are in different classes than you, only ever being seen rushing by in the halls. The classes are foreign, the atmosphere never quite right, not comforting, almost bare. The hallways are a labyrinth of confusion, sweat and people too old to be kids and too young to be adults, stuck somewhere in between.
For me, being a highschooler in 2023 is like a lock that won’t open, expecting one thing and being handed something complex and difficult to understand, something that adults can’t even solve. It seems so simple and easy, but it’s an entirely new level of difficulty, one that I can’t understand. Some people have found the combination but even after years of attempts haven’t deciphered it. I carry the lock in my bag, knowing that it seems simple, but it’s not. Behind it are expectations, appearance, friends, family, and me, locked and hidden away, waiting for me to find the combination.