As I sit here in my bed writing this article after the first day of the semester I come to realize I am starting my lasts for my college career. Today was my last first day of class. Tomorrow will be my last second day of class. Within the span of five months I will have had my last track practice, my last final exam, my last girl’s night in, my last homecoming, and my last dorm move out. The weird part about all of it is, I think I’ll be OK.

The thought of graduating from college and becoming an actual adult is an exciting and yet extremely terrifying thought. I’ve probably experienced this feeling before but each time it happens it’s never quite the same feeling. Riding a bike for the first time and picking which college I was going to attend are the two moments I can think of currently. It means life is changing for me, I’m growing up. While I am excited to own my own place and not have to deal with doing homework every night (which might be the thing I’m looking most forward to), getting to that point in my life is filled with a heaping helping of uncertainty. I can’t say for certain where I will be living, who I can keep in touch with from school, what my job will be like or if I can actually survive as an adult, and that is terrifying. So, while all of that is looming around the corner, it would be really easy to stress for the next five months about how I was going to make it happen, but I’m not going to.

Stressing about what waits for me after graduation prevents me from taking a step back and enjoying all the lasts that I still have to their fullest. I could sit and worry about my pending job application or I can take the night to go to a school event with my friends. There is a quote that always stuck with me from my high school. It was written in multi-colors across the white brick wall in the choir room which read “Don’t take it for granted”. I always looked at that quote and thought it was stupid until it was the last day of choir senior year and I finally understood the gravity of that statement. Now, starting my last semester of college, I plan to stay true to that quote as best as I can and fully appreciate all of the experiences I will have this semester. Not all of them will be good ones, but that doesn’t mean they can’t teach me something important. So, here is to a life changing and exciting last semester in college. Let there be lots of ups, but also a few downs to keep me grounded. Let there be good test scores throughout the semester. Let there be life changing late night conversations that turn into late night laughs. But most of all, let there be more amazing memories of my senior year of college than I know what to do with.

P.S,

I will most likely write about this again on the last day of school so look forward to that article!