Last week, I sent in my $300 deposit and my housing preferences to Lewis and Clark College. This week, I sent cards to the other schools who accepted me, letting them know that I would be attending Lewis and Clark. (That's something you have to do for small schools, but not most big ones) Today, I wrote on the facebook event College Map so that it would be in my school's newspaper that I am going to Lewis and Clark.
So it's official. That's where I'm going. I know that I'm by far not the first person to go through this and I won't be the last. Yet I still feel the need to talk about it. It's exciting. It's a big part of my life, it's a big part of anyone's life. I'm 18, and now I know where I am going to spend the next four years. It was my choice to go there. That's such a strange feeling.
It doesn't quite feel real. When I was younger, I looked up to high school seniors, they seemed so big and mature and like they knew what they were doing. Now I know the truth. We're all normal human sized, only mature on occasion, and we rarely know what we are doing. We're teenagers.
Lately I've been figuring out who I am, and that included figuring out where this new me would fit. Which college should I pick? At first it seemed like a daunting decision, but then I realized where my heart was. It was at Lewis and Clark.
Once I made that decision, a whole world of thought came crashing into me. All of a sudden, this was real. I'm going to college. I'm also leaving a whole world behind. When you commit to a school, that seems to be the next thing we all think about. As we get excited about what we're moving on to, it's hard not to take a look at what we're moving on from.
I'll always be close with my family. I'm going to be an hour and a half away from one of my brothers. I know that I'll never leave them behind. I won't get a new family.
However, I will get new friends. I won't hold on to all my high school friends, I know that from the people I've already seen go to college. I'm going to have to say goodbye to all of my friends here, to my school, to my theater, to improv, to work. My entire life that I've built here, all of the things I've done and people I've known...in a few months, I will be gone from it. It'll all still be here, but I won't be a part of it. Starting over completely can sound really good, but it can also be really sad.
I guess what I'm saying is that I'm really excited to go to college, but I'm sad to leave this behind me.
Starting a new chapter requires finishing the last one. As an avid reader of books, I know this quite well. So I'll finish this chapter. I don't want to skim it or skip to the good parts of college, I want to experience my last months as a high school senior to the fullest. I want to be ready to say goodbye.
“Things change. And friends leave. Life doesn't stop for anybody.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
