Of course I’m scared for graduation because of the unknown after school. I’m scared for every reason that every other student is scared for graduation day. I don’t know where I’m going to end up after I leave the safe confines of Forest Grove and the educational system. In all honesty, I will probably just throw myself back into more school, but that’s not really why I’m scared for graduation day. I’m truthfully scared of the person I will become.

I’ve looked back at photos from my freshman year of high school, or even from middle school and I realize how much I changed in four years. Sometimes, I’ll even have a sort of out of body experience where I’ll suddenly be back in the mindset I was when the photo was taken. It’s hard to explain, but when that happens, I realize how much my thought process and thoughts about people around me has transformed. My entire mindset changes and I suddenly realize that I am becoming a different person, and rather quickly.

I have already changed so much within the last three months of being away from home, in a different state, studying at college. I have voted and stayed up the entire night to watch the results of one of the most mind-boggling elections and I’ve made new friends that I know I’m going to have for a lifetime. I did what I never thought imaginable and spent two and a half months away from my twin sister and only cried six times. I dyed my hair for the first time and loved it.

And I’m still going to change. I’m only three months into a four-year journey of finding myself as an adult and (hopefully) a functional person in society. I’m going to change so much more than I did in high school. There are so many more variables in my next four years to shape who I will be than there were in high school. I’m away from my parents and the people I grew up with. I already have new friends who like me, even though they haven’t known me my entire life. I have already connected with professors of different schools of thought that I never even imagined myself being interested in.

While I’m scared for who I’m going to be when I graduate, in truth, I am so excited to see how far I come when I do finally graduate in 2020. I am going to be a completely different person than I am now when I walk across the stage on graduation day, and I can’t wait to meet her.