It’s 6:22 p.m., Thursday, May 8, and I am sitting on a brown leather chair in our living room—what my family has always called “the blue room.” My mom, dad, and I are all just sitting here, waiting for Wheel of Fortune to start, like we have so many nights before. It’s one of those quiet routines that never felt all that important—until now, when everything is about to change.

Although this column is due tomorrow morning, I have yet to decide what to write about. How do you summarize the last four years of your life in 600 words? As I sit in this chair trying to reflect on the past four years of my life, I draw a blank. I find it so difficult to decide on one story, lesson, or takeaway that somehow captures everything.

I’m not one for a sappy story about how much I will miss high school because, in reality, I won’t. I won’t miss the unimportant, busy work that teachers assign, crowded hallways, or the smell of vapes in the bathrooms. Although I won’t miss those things, I also do not want to think about the future.

I’ve spent the last four years of my life building habits, routines, and plans — and now, all of a sudden, everything is about to change.

That routine I perfected will suddenly vanish, leaving me to fend for myself. Change is unsettling—like the ground beneath my feet is shifting, and I don’t know where I will end up. In a way, I’ve become comfortable with the routine high school provided: knowing where I need to be, what I need to do, and when. But after this is over, I won’t have those familiar markings to guide me.

Although I try to hide it and bundle up my feelings from everyone around me, I admit I am scared for the future and of leaving my routine behind, as I am sure so many of my classmates are. I try not to think about it too much. I don’t have to worry if I don’t think about it.  It’s easier to push those thoughts to the back of my mind, to focus on the now and pretend the future isn’t looming over me. But the truth is, no matter how much I try to avoid it, the future is inevitable. And I know deep down, I can’t avoid it.

It is now 7:12 p.m., and I am still sitting on the same brown leather chair in “the blue room.” I am almost finished with this column, though I feel much more anxious than when I started. I am still sitting with my parents, except now I am reminiscing—thinking about all the evenings just like this one that quietly came and went without me realizing how much they meant to me, similar to how every moment in high school came and went with little thought at all.

Writing about this has made everything feel a little more real. I still don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to leave behind “the blue room,” and I don’t want to leave behind everything that has happened over the past four years. But the future will find me whether I like it or not—so here’s to finding new routines, and, maybe, someday finding a new “blue room.”