The cerulean, bright blue sky was glistening with a sharply vibrant color to it, with the brilliant glow of a September morning sun shining down.

   At only around nine o’clock, the entire atmosphere of Eastern High School’s courtyard was still, calm, and cool. The temperature was one hundred percent perfect and it couldn’t have been better any cooler or any warmer.

   There were only a few small clouds in sight, but not too many; a perfect amount. As I sauntered slowly throughout the grounds, I gazed at everything in sight around me: The flowers, the trees, the birds, the grass, the concrete ground. I attempted to observe and appreciate every single minute detail present in my surrounding environment.

  As my mind and body slowly wandered around, I began to realize that I never truly take the time to focus on the serenity and stillness of the world around me. Such a large percentage of my time, I am plagued by the anxiety of schoolwork, tests and quizzes, and the pressure to excel in every facet of life. To simply focus on the sole, typically insignificant details of the atmosphere around me without thinking about any other everyday tasks and work genuinely felt freeing. Breathing in the fresh cool air, I reflected on the start of a new school-year and the great potential opportunities that lie ahead of me in my future. 

  Getting older is not easy, and beginning to take on the responsibilities of adulthood as each year passes by is very much a difficult task. 

  As I mindlessly gazed at the grass and flowers of the courtyard, I primarily thought about how fast time is passing by. It is so absolutely incredible how fast my childhood and middle school years have passed by, especially the past five or six.

 Now, as I have come within just 30 short days of my seventeenth birthday, time truly feels like such a clear yet lighting-fast blur. Sometimes, the days go by so fast for me that I swear the 15-16 hours I’m awake for each day feel like just a few seconds. The days so quickly turn into weeks, which then turn into months equally as fast. Then, as the months pass right by, an entire year passes, and it sometimes doesn’t even feel real anymore.

   Now thinking back to the courtyard, it reminds me of how vividly I remember the first day of my freshman year like it was yesterday, already more than two whole years ago. These two years passed so unbelievably fast, it doesn’t even seem realistic. 

  Now, more than halfway completed my high school career, I am faced with the challenge of thinking about colleges, getting actual adult jobs, and stacking my resume. College feels like it’s an entire lifetime away, yet somehow it is going to arrive quicker than I can blink my eyes. Before I know it, twenty years from now will arrive, and I will be a thirty-seven-year-old man who may have a family, business, and children of my own. I cannot even begin to envision twenty years from now, let alone five, yet somehow it is just an arm’s length away.