One of the side effects of graduation creeping nearer is a constant mental flux between absolute joy and melancholic pain. They’re the “senioritis” symptoms no one told you about: a whiplash between excitement, dread, and complete apathy.

In the first period, you can get back a test that you failed and be suddenly, passionately ecstatic that you are leaving and never have to see the exposed brick of NASH ever again. By the second period, you’re nearing tears because you just realized Prom has passed and saying goodbye also means saying goodbye to the people you care for.

More often than not nowadays, I find myself existing in a state of denial. If I don’t think about it, I don’t need to think about starting over, or about all of the endings that are coming, or about where I’ll be in a year. Every time I try, I find myself entering an existential crisis that leaves me curled up in a tiny ball in my bed, entering the seventh circle of the Youtube Inferno, watching videos on why Chris Pratt is so charismatic.

So, considering my extreme (and weird) methods of avoiding my problems, it really isn’t that odd that what made me accept my existential dread was a carton of expired milk.

Milk is a rarity in my house, since everyone is “lactose-sensitive.” When we buy it, we use it almost solely to cook and, if we’ve had a “take out” kind of week, it’s easy for the milk to drift further and further into the fridge until it disappears for days or weeks.

About a week ago, I decided to make myself some hot chocolate and dug through the fridge to find the carton, only to see a second before pouring it that it was chunky, disgusting, and nearly two weeks past its expiration date.

I threw it in the garbage with a wrinkled nose and didn’t give it a second thought — until the next day, when I was sitting in my poetry class, listening while my teacher talked about the profound poetry of graduation. 

My teacher would be proud of me because at that moment all I could see was a metaphor between graduation and that extra-chunky milk with a stamped date on top.

I tried to push the “bad thoughts” away, but the damage was already done. I had embraced the spiral. And once I had, I started seeing expiration dates stamped on everything.

My last “official” chorus concert expired on April 25. My Prom expired at midnight on May 5th. My high school education will expire on June 7th. And eventually, the relationships I made with my friends and teachers will expire at a date so unknown that I may not realize it until I glance back.

And what I realized later that night, eating an entire carton of Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Cream with a spoon, is that everything ends. Your childhood, your innocence, your relationships, and even your life.

It was such a dark thought that I thought there was no way to possibly feel good about it. Until I looked at the top of my empty ice cream carton, saw the expiration date on top, and realized it was a good thing.

Because I enjoyed that ice cream. It’s been my favorite flavor for months now. But before it, it was Phish Food, then Carmel Peanut Butter, then Lemon Sorbet. And I know after I eat too much Chocolate Fudge Brownie, my flavors will change again.

Everything ends. But while I had it, I loved that ice cream. And one day, I’ll love another one, but for now, at the moment I needed it, Chocolate Fudge Brownie was my comfort.

And if you think about it, that’s exactly what high school is. The expiration date is not a sign of when the food goes bad, but the time when it should be consumed for maximum enjoyment. These last few years have been the in-between period when high school is best enjoyed.

And if you revisit it after that time is expired, the same enjoyment isn’t there. If you cling to high school forever, then you’ll expire too. Life is malleable, like ice cream flavors, like changing taste buds, like the experiences we have now. Things have an expiration date because things are meant to change and, yes, that can be terrifying. But it can also be the most beautiful thing of all.

Nothing lasts forever, not ice cream, milk, high school, or life. But in the end, the right to change, the room to grow, and the joy you have before the expiration date are what makes the experience of living wonderful.