Two Weeks Until a New Chapter: Graduation and The Future

If you were to tell me that I would one day be less than two weeks from graduating from college I would have laughed in your face. Well, that day has arrived. In less than two weeks, I will be walking across that stage. In less than two weeks I will be going to my final senior formal. In less than two weeks, I will be saying my goodbyes to some of the people who have shaped me in my most malleable of times - when I first entered the collegiate world.

The only things that stand between me and that day is when I will no longer be an undergrad are a three page group write up and two cases, that, and time.

It terrifies me to think that I four years ago, I was going through a similar period of nervous energy and anxiety when I knew my high school graduation was similarly around the corner. Like it was four years ago, graduation will serve as the page turn that opens to a new chapter in my life. Instead of entering my potentially final years of schooling, I will be entering the workforce. Instead of saying goodbye to friends who I knew almost exclusively within the concrete wall confines of my high school or the shell of a boat, I will be saying goodbye to people who I have lived with...

people I have seen every day for years

people I took my shot of alcohol with

people who have seen me at my very highs

people who I have seen in the lowest of lows

people who I have gotten lost in foreign countries with

people who have made me more mature

and people who have made me embrace the times to let loose.

But beyond just saying goodbye, I will still be able to stay close with many people who I'm proud to call now some of my best friends.

The job I was able to get will keep me in the DC area. Many of my closest friends, people I have known since the first day I moved in to my freshman dorm, are also going to be working in the DC area at least for a few years. If there is one lesson that graduating from high school taught me, it's that to keep your most trusted friends close to you. I made many friends in HS, but I equally lost contact with nearly as many people once we went to our ways for college. I know that many relationships I have today will also likely end in the same way. It's the unavoidable consequence of meeting countless people but eventually crafting a close group of those who you really trust. My close circle today is smaller than it was in high school, which I think is for the better. We've experienced more together and have bonded at a level which I think is deeper than my relationships were in the past.

I will also not have to say goodbye to my boyfriend in the same way I expected I would have to. He too will be interning in the DC area this summer. While I don't want to sound selfish, I can't say that I was not a little excited when I found out he will be here. While we both will be working, I hope to still spend time together over the next few months and once he returns for his final year at school as well.

I'm scared. I'm excited. I still don't know what I'm really doing with my life.

I guess I will just have to take things one step at a time.

-JP