Well, it's official. I'm in my last semester of college. I'll be leaving here soon, maybe for good. I've spent four of the most important years of my life on this tiny campus, and suddenly, I'm going to be off on my own, expected to be an adult. It's a scary feeling knowing that everything I ever worked for in middle school and high school, everything I ever focused on...it's almost over. And then what? I feel like I've reached the end of my book. It's the last chapter. I haven't really considered what to do beyond college and now I'm scrambling to come up with some sort of plan.
I know it will work out in the end. It always does. But the not-knowing is still one of the hardest parts. Am I making the right decision? Will I regret this later? Will I get a second chance at choosing the right career? A friend at work reminded me of an important poem that has really spoken to what I've been feeling lately. Yes, you guessed it...Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken. It's cheesy for me to post it here in this context, but I've been hearing it so much lately and from such unexpected people, that I feel it means something.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

For some reason reading this makes me feel better. Also, it's not like I don't have any sort of plan. I just don't feel as prepared as I should be for such a big step. I'm also sad to leave so many friends behind. I've met a lot of beautiful people since I came away to school, and now to leave them all will be particularly hard. Hopefully I'll come back to visit, but I know of a few who say they may not be here when I get back. I wish things could stay the way they are, but I know life has to move forward and I have to take my first step into the real world and make use of all the things I've learned these many, many years behind a desk. Wish me luck!