Being 17-18 Means . . .

"Where Am I Going and Where Have I Been?"

• You personally coin the expression Seize the Day.
• At last you are an adult. (Aren't you?)
• This is your time to be respected by one and all.
• Sex, sex, sex, sex . . . SEX! (SEX!)
• You can afford to be a little nostalgic about your childhood, defined as the period of your life that ended roughly yesterday but also seems like a hundred years ago.
• You are divided between feelings of total comfort around school and excruciating restlessness.
• You suffer a most un-Zenlike burning desire to leave an impression. You want to make yourself a few memories, and you want to be remembered.
• Your relationships are even more important, painful, and rewarding.
• What happened to your independent, accomplished, strong-willed, clear-eyed parents?! Now they start to be very clingy. (What time are you coming home? Can I look at your application? Why do you need to go out on a weeknight? You wearing socks or not? How come you can't go to a movie with us?)
• Is college for me? If so, where? If not, why not? And if not, then what?
• If you're college bound, a special bonus reward for you: incalculable first-semester stress in classes and throughout the entire application ordeal.
• My classmates are my world! And everything changes come June!
• You imagine that adults can be your friends. They're certainly your equals. (Can we stay in touch after graduation?)
• Time! There just isn't enough.
• Oops. Blip on the screen. Senioritis. (What, me worry?)
• Sometimes, in the middle of an afternoon class, you study watermarks on the ceiling and think, Why won't this year ever end?
• Oh, no, senior year is over already . . . How did that happen? Where did high school go? What did I miss? What didn't I miss?

Freshman year is a like a lyric poem. Sophomore year is like a short story. Junior year is like a play, sometimes Neil Simon, sometimes Othello. Senior year? Senior year is War and Peace. And there's no translation available, and you don't read Russian. (Of course, sometimes it's also one of those old Marx Brothers movies, too, or even one of those hilarious slasher movies best watched late at night all by yourself or with one good friend.)

Why all the complication, passion, and urgency?

Seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds, usually seniors in high school, are both savvy and naive, savvy about what they have accomplished and naive in that they think they now definitively know themselves. Most at least suspect, however glimmeringly, that this self-knowledge is not quite secure. Not only that, they have a hunch this self-knowledge will be less than comprehensive a few short months from now, after the last strains of graduation promenade music fades in the distance.

During this time, they are continually consolidating their adolescent experiences in preparation for one big leap into the future. They are rethinking who they are, who their friends are, what their family is, what is truly important to them, and, probably for the first time, their illusions about themselves.

Actually, senior year fall is different from senior year spring. In the fall, seniors are absorbed in and by the future. They are forward thinking and driven. In the spring, they are reaping the benefits earned in the past and they are anxious about decisions they have already made. They are nostalgic and sentimental, and definitely not driven.

This year is not a smooth ride for anybody. Not for somebody in a long-term relationship, not for a soccer star, not for the student body president, not for somebody early-admitted to a prestigious college, and not for somebody who gives hours every week to community service. Not for kids the school puts on a pedestal, not for kids with an armful of prizes and scholarship offers. Not for anybody.

At this stage, regression is a good bet, and so is a spurt of unprecedented growth. Parents may have slightly bizarre midnight conversations with their teenagers while standing around the refrigerator and rethink what is meant by the term quality time. On other fronts, there may be arguments that parents could have easily avoided. Parents will be proud, will be downcast, will be stunned, will be awed by the sensitivity of their beautiful children, and will be disgusted by the spectacle of what's been left on the kitchen counter.

Above all else, this is the moment for parents to tell teenagers they love them and believe in them. They'll need to be reminded. Because somehow your time together with them has been worth every ounce of energy and imagination and concern that you have invested. Though sometimes that is something you can only see in the rearview mirror. Step on the accelerator, though it breaks your heart, and go. But don't worry. Your teenager will always know where to find you down the road.

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