With my final days of undergrad coming to a close, I’ve spent an unnecessary amount of time looking through pictures from the past three years and reflecting on all that has happened. When I think back to the day that I moved in my freshman year, I honestly don’t even recognize that girl today. That girl was filled with fear, anxiety, self-doubt, sadness, and an extreme dependency on others. Time is a crazy thing. Days seem to go by so slow, yet before you know it you’re packing your room up to go home for the final time.

So much has happened and so much has changed in those short three years. Friends made freshman year that I thought would see me until the end have come and gone. Professors have become my confidants, my relatively equals rather than intimidating, unapproachable men and women. The ranking of my personal values has drastically altered its order. Yet even when I look back on the things that I once thought were the “end of the world”, I realize that they all happened for a reason and I wouldn’t change the course of my college career because it wouldn’t have led me to where I am today.

Today I sit here extremely proud of where I am and confident in who I have come to be. I can honestly say that my independence has grown in ways I didn’t believe possible. I rely on no one but my Father. I am comfortable, confident, and happy just being with me, myself, and I. I gave up the belief that I need a man, a companion to complete me and to help me to enjoy life to its fullest. I know that I am enough for me, and that is all I need.

I thought it would be quite easy to say goodbye for the final time to this campus. I was ready to be done the semester I came in. But today, I’m not emotionally ready for the last goodbye. This place truly has become my home away from home, something that I never dreamed possible. Most of all, I’m not ready to say goodbye to the friends I leave behind.

When you graduate high school, you have this idealistic expectation that you’ll remain in close contact with all of your friends and that things will never change. Unfortunately, I learned very quickly that it’s not possible for things to stay the same. Your friendships are bound to change because you’re no longer seeing the each other every single day like you have for the past “x” amount of years. Though these friendships change, the test of distance and time leaves you with the ones who have been here all along and who always will be.

Knowing that my college friendships will not be the same after the day I depart from campus for the last time, I know that I am still truly blessed. I leave with so many memories that I will always look back to when I need a little pick-me-up: The nights we stayed in laughing to the point of tears at something an outsider would find completely random and non amusing. The nights we did go out and we were the only ones dancing in the basement, taking “laps" around the house multiple times even though we knew the outcome, waking up the next morning trying to play volleyball and realizing how poor of a decision it was. Taking classes with friends so you could sit next to each other and laugh-cry your way through (depending on the class). Eating the same food for the same meal everyday for 4 months straight. The memories are endless, but unfortunately the time at college with your best friends is not.

As I say goodbye, I leave a piece of my heart here at the place I have come to love. I leave the people who have slowly but surely entered their way into my heart. To these friends, know that I don’t intend for our friendship to cease at this last goodbye. I expect to be a part of the important things in your life (even if it’s through a quick text), and I believe you will do the same for me. I’ve learned so much about myself and though I still have a ways to go, I really believe I have made strides in “finding myself” as you are expected to do in college. I know that the journey does not end here and it is time to start the next chapter of my book, but part of my heart will always lie in the pages before.