Starting high school, I was afraid of what was coming my way. I was always told that in high school I was on my own, and so I learned how to be independent. (That was all a lie, because the staff in my school literally babied us for everything and cared deeply about each of us) I learned quite some easy things but some life lessons for sure. As someone who is attached to her family, nearly everything I did was with them. Going to a high school that was not in my neighborhood and in a different one, helped me grow as an individual. I learned how to ride the train all by myself.

I learned how to travel through nearly all of New York City in four years. Besides those small things, I learned that the people you start high school with, sometimes will not be the same people you will end with. (Trust me, that is normal and okay.) High school was from being in class from 9:08am-3:25pm EVERY single day of the week, for seven periods straight and one lunch break. Taking classes that I did not care about, listening teachers go on and on about things I probably was not going to use in the near future. I feel like I found myself in high school, not as much as I would have wanted to but something along those lines. I was like a seed that needed some soil, water and sunlight to grow and to glow. I was someone who never really spoke, who had a lot to say but was afraid of what others might say or think about me. Who allowed people to walk all over me, to control my every move, my feelings and all of that. My high school allowed me to change and grow. High school is over but I'm definitely going to miss my class, my teachers, the lectures, the laughs, the cries, the cutting class in the hallways or the bathroom. Waking up early and complaining on snap about how I want school to be over.

I remember my first day of senior year, my first snap was "When's winterbreak?" It feels weird to say that soon I will be calling myself a high school graduate. I do not feel like I'm ready to let go of all of it just yet (I will never want to do another year in high school, keep it away from me please.) I think the hardest part is being so use to going home after school was over, or any program I was participating in. Now it is like, I'm going to be living in a dorm, away from my family and friends. I'm going to be 3-4 hours away and it feels so weird. I learned how to be independent in high school but in college, everything is literally up to me. All of my decisions will be up to me. Not anyone in my family, but me, myself and I.

It is very hard from me because I'm very family oriented and I feel SOOOOO attached to my family by the hip. I'm also my mother's ONLY daughter and I am the youngest. I say I am not ready but I feel like neither is she. She did not have the opportunity to finish high school, nor the opportunity to attend college. She always says she will never take something away from me, that she never had the chance to do. I feel as if I am not ready but something tell me I am..just a little. High school and college are two different worlds, two different chapters and I am done with one. It is like I was in high school as one small blossomed flower in that one world and ready to be a bigger blossomed flower in college and in that second world. I'm ready to be watered, hit with sunlight and soil. To grow and glow. It was time, that I cut the umbilical cord.