When I look around the halls, I see the faces that I have grown up with for my whole life. The faces of the people I have come to know so well, all of their talents, shortcomings, and experiences. I know their favorite colors (usually none), their ex-best friends (we don’t talk about them), and how they lie (I see right through you). I have been surrounded by this bubble of people for my whole life, and now I’m expected to burst right through and enter a new one filled with responsibilities, strangers, and the harrowing possibility of failure.

I can’t help feeling like I’m being punished, as if I worked so hard to build this life only to throw it away and start anew. I guess, in a way, this is a good thing; it is high time I actually learn how to cook, or make a doctor’s appointment on my own. Instead of living in this protected bubble, I can accomplish the things that I’ve only been able to wonder about before. Maybe I’ll even make some tangible goals for my future. 

Looking back, there are some things I would have changed, but that happens even if you accomplished everything you wanted to. However, if I ever had some advice that was worth giving, it’s to live in the moment. Try to do anything and everything available to you and make the most of it, because you may not be able to do it again. Even if that something terrifies you, it is possible to find a gem in the process.

The point of starting over is to do the things you never got to do before. So even if I feel like I’m holding onto a needle a second away from popping the perfectly constructed bubble that is my life, this moment is worth the risk. This risk is worth the sacrifice because there will be new people, new experiences, new stories. And when I see the old faces that felt like my whole world, maybe it won’t feel like an ending, maybe it will feel like a new beginning.