GRADUATION!
:D
:/
:(

It's almost that time of year. That time time of our lives. We all anticipate it for the first 17-18 years of our lives, but is anybody ever really ready for it? How are we supposed to be ready to leave the friends we've had our whole lives? Drop everything we've made, everything we've worked on. I always thought I would be ready to graduate, and throughout all of high school, I never thought this point in my life could come soon enough. Boy, was I wrong. It came faster than I could have ever believed, and now that it's right around the corner, I want nothing more than for time to slow down. But I know that won't happen. The closer graduation gets, the faster the time will go.
I'm not ready. I don't want to say goodbye. What none of us realize is that we are all living the life. Right now. We are the perfect age. We are 18 &legal. We can do things and not have to have our parents sign for us. We can drive and do whatever we want for the most part. We have more friends than we can count, and at this point, it seems like we're at the top of the world. Who would want to give any of that up? The only thing we have to worry about is (maybe) paying for gas and insurance for our car. We have jobs, but we have no real expenses, so we are free to do with out money what we want. Our parents trust us.
We spend the days socializing with friends. Nights at school sporting events. We fall in and out of lust and infatuation, but mistake it all for love. We think there is nothing new for us to learn. We think we know everything there is to know, we have all the friends we could ever need, and we are on top of the world. Sadly, none of this is true.
For once in my life, I'm scared. I don't know what the future holds for me, &to be honest, it scares me shitless. I'm absolutely terrified of what the rest of my life will have for me. I've always known what to expect, who to trust, and what kinds of things I should avoid. After graduation, it's all new.
Growing up, we never thought graduation would come. We always just thought it was that time that we always wanted to come, but never thought it ACTUALLY would. We have lived in a bubble, and pretty soon, our perfect world is going to burst. We are all in for a very rude awakening. We all want to stay young and carefree, but at the same time, be on our own so that we can call our own shots. Too bad we can't have the best of both worlds.
I want to graduate more than anything. I have so many plans for my life, but who knows if any of them are actually going to happen. &If they don't, then what? I only have a plan A and B. I don't have a plan C. I hate just leaving my life to fate. I have to know some of what life has to hold for me. I don't know what I'm going to do.
I have all the friends I could ask for, a great job, I'm surrounded by cute guys, I have countless crushes, and so much more. I have a car all to myself thanks to my brother.
We all need to take a step back and look at our lives. We need to realize everything that we have, and be thankful for every single aspect of it. We need to thank our parents for being patient enough with us through all of our stupid mistakes instead of killing us all then and there. We need to thank every single person that has ever been a part of our lives. If it weren't for every single person, every single moment, every laugh, every memory, every tear, everyTHING. If it weren't for our pasts, we wouldn't be who we are today. Without our past choices, we would all be totally different today.
I can't wait to see what the rest of my life has in store for me, but for once, I don't want to give up what I have right now. I love my life, and finally feel like I'm where I need to be. I feel like my life is finally starting to fall into place, and I don't want that to go away. The countless laughs, the drama for all the right reasons, the friends, the crushes, everything. I don't want to lose any of it. I can finally say that I am in love with my life. Do I really have to give it up?

Well, let's just make the best of the time we all have left. Let's laugh at the things that happened yesterday, fall in and out of love too many times, be friends with everyone we can, reconnect with those friends we lost, and be sure to hold onto the friends we have. Let's be thankful for our life right now, and not regret a single thing. After all, if you blink, it could all be gone.