It's normal to be nervous for college — it's a milestone where you start a new life, in a new environment, with new people...

It's normal to be excited about college — it's a milestone where you start a new life, in a new environment, with new people!!!

But the latter really hasn't set in with me yet, and it's not because my nerves are taking up all the space. But what does that mean? Am I going to struggle "putting myself out there," making friends, or finding motivation if I'm not excited to be there? For a girl who is traveling 10 hours in less than a week to start this new life, I would really like to prepare myself for the answers to these questions. But here's the thing- I won't know until I get there, and I realized that that is exactly why I chose to go to a school so far from home- to adapt, to learn, to experience.

Of course, by the end (beginning) of senior year, I got lazy with my work, was tired nearly every day, and could no longer handle high school BS, but I never considered it to be senioritis. I considered senioritis to be an extreme eagerness to graduate and leave high school. Overall, I enjoyed going to school, was successful academically, and had a great group of friends that made every day bearable. I knew graduating meant leaving the only life I ever knew.

Maybe I'm not excited to leave because I never let myself be excited about it.

Growing up in Fayette County was nothing extraordinary. But it wasn't "nothing" either. It really frustrates me to hear people say that when they leave home, they will never come back. Experiences are all relative, so I acknowledge that theirs may not have been as good as mine, but I am a firm believer in that where you come from will always be a part of who you are. So why ignore it? Embrace it. And if you don't like it, come back and help make it better for the kids of the future.

Maybe I'm not excited because I'm afraid I'll forget where I came from.

The first step is always the hardest. The first sentence of an essay, picking up a huge book to start reading, or in my case, making the move to college. Whether I'm excited or not, I know that once I start, once I take that first step, everything will get easier adapting to change, learning from mistakes, experiencing new things.I hope that in two weeks when I start classes, explore Charleston, get lost, trip on the sidewalk, ace my first quiz, call home for the first time, and post all about my new life as a college student on my finsta, I will reread this article and say, “I should have been excited about everything."