Last First Day

Let me be the last person in my class to say excitedly that today was the last first day of school in my life.

This is the final stretch for me as a student. I'm this close to completing my educational career and step into the real world with jobs, bills, and other fun/crap adult stuff.

And I'm ready for it. I feel that way because of the education I have gotten in the last 18 months. 2 years ago, would I have been ready? Not a chance. 4 years ago? I would have told you yes but I'd have been way, way wrong.

I feel prepared and confident in what I'm doing. Although I still act like an idiot child at points in the day, I've done a lot of growing up in the last year and a half, both at and away from school.

When I reflected on my past year while battling symptoms of the previous night on the first of January, I was proud of all I had done. I accomplished things that before I didn't think were possible for me to do.

I would like to say it's been all due to hard work but that would probably be an outright lie. I've walked the proverbial tightrope at points; sometimes getting to bed at the end of the day wondering how in the hell I managed to get through that day.

But at no point have I ever told myself I didn't want to get up the next day and do it all over again because while I might say that exact thing out of frustration, deep down I enjoy what I do and look forward to new challenges.

And now I'm ready to move on from school and face new ones.

It doesn't mean the learning will stop. Of course it doesn't.

But I'm ready to continue to do it beyond the walls of a classroom.