This photo was taken during a trip my friends and I had during the summer holidays, to celebrate the end of high school graduation.

A lot of things happened before the end of high school and a lot of things have happened after the end of high school. I’d never imagined how things could change so much and this photo is one of my favourites that I took on that trip. To me, this photo symbolises us not so much as a group, but as all high school graduates. We were “free” of high school, “free” to enter a more grown-up world and to face more responsibilities. As all good things come to an end, so do friendships, sometimes. When I took this photo, I didn’t think how my friendships could change. I was wrong. Some have changed for the worse and some have changed for the better. Either way, now I know, that things happen for a reason. We may never know what that reason is sometimes, but that’s just the way life is.

This photo also symbolises, to me, how different our life paths are going to be once we step outside of the world of high school and we step off the path that we shared together as a bunch of friends from high school. All of us are leading different lives and not all of us keep in touch.

I always imagine that I will still be friends with my high school friends and imagine us being old and sharing memories. However, I know that it’s not always possible. No matter how hard we try, we’re going to be going down different paths in life. Some of us will travel to different countries and who knows how long we can keep in touch then. Many of us will have different jobs, different lifestyles and when we have families and houses to look after, who knows when we’ll have the time to keep in touch.

I think a lot of people take their high school friendships for granted because they don’t really realise that things can change and things do change. I’m always thinking about how the other end of this photo might turn out. Who are we going to be in the future? What kinds of people will we be, walking out of that tunnel of uncertain futures? But most of all, I hope that we will all be walking out together, despite our different futures and life paths. I hope we walk out, as confident and mature individuals, who have learned the lessons of life and can now once more, as we did as teenagers, not worry too much and just enjoy things the way they are.

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