Last Wednesday, I woke up at 6:30 a.m. to my brother getting ready for school. Oh yeah, school is starting for him again. Summer had flown by without me noticing. In between vacation, running and doing work for my internship, August had snuck up on me.
In Indiana, August means school starting ungodly early. School that requires my brother to leave the house at 7:10 a.m. School that starts at 7:45 a.m. School that has five periods a day with a five-minute break in between each class. Not to mention two-hour cross-country practice after school.
As I thought more about it, I started to wonder how I did it all. A high school schedule is brutal. Being at school at 7:30 a.m. was never pleasant; there would always be a line of cars and buses that would take forever to move. I remember walking into the atrium and seeing people walking around in clumps, Starbucks coffees in hand.
Despite being a runner, walking up the two levels of stairs to the locker room would knock the breath out of me every time.
The quick class schedule gave students barely any time to regain energy before throwing them into another class. Five minutes was not enough time to prepare myself mentally to get more homework assigned. I felt like I was being swallowed by crowds of students on my way up or down the stairs to class every day.
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I usually felt the fatigue set in around 1 p.m., begging me to take a nap. High school should definitely have a designated nap time. Yet there was no nap time for anyone, just class and then the final bell, which to most signaled freedom, but to us athletes signaled a different kind of workload.
Most days I looked forward to running outside, getting a breath of fresh air after being inside all day. But there were also days where I was so exhausted and could not shake the feeling of all the dreaded homework I had to do after a hard workout. Regardless, the two-hour practice slot usually helped calm my nerves.
The rest of the day was homework and dinner. Then I'd do it all over again the next day. School, practice, work, eat, sleep, repeat. It's a schedule that you can easily adjust to in the moment. Looking back as a college student now, I can never imagine myself ever going through a packed day like that again.
Sure, there’s a lot more going on in college with classes, clubs and friends, but there’s room to go at your own pace, room to take time for yourself in between classes and commitments to take a deep breath and just sit there. Being able to just sit there for a moment is a luxury high school doesn’t usually provide.
As the beginning of my sophomore year of college looms closer and closer, I continue to remind myself that even though I will have a million things to do, I will still have time to sit there and breathe. Yes, it’ll feel like the flip of a light switch once all the students are out and about again, but it won’t stop me from going at my own pace.
Isabella Vesperini (she/her) is a sophomore majoring in journalism and minoring in Italian.
