To say that senior year is coming to a close and I am soon to be on my university’s campus is an understatement. It is April… I GRADUATE IN MAY. I could’ve sworn it was just two years ago when I was at freshman orientation and all of the juniors and seniors were saying that high school flies by, but in reality that was 4 years ago. Now I am one of those seniors, asking myself where has the time gone? 

The time is rapidly fleeting. Every time I look up another 3 months have passed and I’m closer and closer to leaving Hillcrest behind and starting my new life as a young adult and UMICH student. The event I’ve been waiting for the last 4 years is almost here. Prom is the 9th of next month. I have been thinking about prom since middle school, what I would wear, what kind of person I would go with, and what my colors would be. A lot has changed since then and is still changing as I’m writing this. Then, not too long after prom I GRADUATE. The time I thought I had to write speeches, make dinner plans, and go on vacation is all disappearing. Soon after all of that it’ll be time for me to pack my bags and leave for Ann Arbor. I’m not leaving in August like many of my friends. I’ll be gone before the end of June. I’ll be taking three college courses, staying in the dorms, and getting a taste of freedom. All of this is happening a lot sooner than I thought it would. 

I’ve never been so excited, yet terrified at the same time. I’m scared of the responsibility and realities that come with being an adult in today’s world but I’m excited to enter a new chapter of my life and to see where it takes me. I’m in the final stages of adolescence and I thought that I would be close to knowing who I am by now. I was wrong. Everyday I learn something new about myself and as every year passes I see how much I’ve changed and yet how much I’ve stayed the same. I know once I go to college I will continue to change especially since I will have more freedom to explore my identity. I know in the next 4 years, I’ll look around and say the same thing when it’s time for me to graduate from college.