Here's to you, 2016.

This year has been life changing.

Looking back, I never thought I would make it this far. I knew that 2016 would be a really important (and busy) year for me. I knew that I would turn 18 years old; I realized that I would graduate from high school just a few months later; and to top it all off, I knew that I would begin my college journey. But I also knew, in the back of my head, how shy I was. I knew that a quiet, shy, mousy person like me would never make it far.

So 2016, here's to you. Here's to you for coming up on me so fast. Here's to you for being so tough. Here's to you for making me into someone who I never thought I could be.

First of all, let me say that it has been a roller-coaster ride. The year started off with a new beginning, for me at least. I was finally home free. I no longer had to suffer under the burden of Calculus and Physics. There were times when I seriously wondered if I would ever make it through those class periods. Furthermore,I wondered if I'd ever make it to the end of the semester. It was the hardest time of my entire life, and when the new year finally came around, I felt like a new person. Shortly thereafter, when January came around, things were still stellar. I got accepted into George Mason, and on January 20th I officially became an adult. It was an emotional time because my family and I realized that I was an adult and that this was only the beginning of new chapter in my life. To add to the mixing pot of emotions, I chose my school, and we all realized how close and how real everything was becoming.

Fast forwarding through Spring, we get to May. While everyone was excited to see me graduate from high school, myself included, I realized what a trivial time this was. After I walked across that stage, I realized all I had was a piece of paper to symbolize the first quarter of my life that I had just spent. After I walked across the stage, and was sitting, mixed in with the rest of my class, I would never see some of these people again. Sure I may see them working, or in the grocery store, but I would never know them as the teenager that I knew them as in high school. Before graduation, I thought I would be thrilled to pieces to be done with it all. But as it was all happening, all I could think was how much I wished that I had that I would have been more confident, that I would have tried to make more lasting friendships. It was only as our ceremony was ending that I realized how much my timidness and reservedness made me miss out on, and the fact that my heart was ready to press the rewind button, but my brain convincing me that it was too late to try anything, was the hardest part of it all.

At this point, I was only five months into the new year and it had already taught me so much. It had taught me to try my absolute hardest and to be thankful for the little things. But most of all, after graduation, it taught me to take chances, and not to be ashamed of myself, to be proud of who I am, and act on it. 2016 made me realize that I should have never been afraid of being rejected, or made fun of, that I should have just been ME. It taught me that was the way to be truly happy, and that it was also the way to make lasting memories and friendships, both of which I realized that I was missing, unfortunately at the last moment.

However, the rest of 2016 went the way I wanted it to. Not because I got lucky, but because the first half of that year taught me so many valuable lessons and I used those lessons to mold the rest of that year into everything that I wanted it to be. I told myself that I was going to start fresh when I got to college. 2016 taught me that I should not be afraid of being myself and to utilize my confidence which is exactly what I did on August 25, 2016. I arrived to college on a day that I never thought I would be able to make it to and I kept my promise. I was not afraid to be myself. I was on a different planet, I had so much confidence. It was an intoxicating feeling, so much so, that within a few days, it became routine. I was not afraid to be myself because I realized that everyone I came to know in those few days, was in the same situation as I was, looking for friends, themselves, and a new beginning. Shortly thereafter, I made new friends, people I never would have dreamed that I would know or be able to be friends with, and I came together with the most incredible person, someone who has become my better half. I excelled in my classes, I got involved, and I blossomed into the person that I have always wanted to be.

I accredit it all to you, 2016.

Here's to you!