One cold Sunday afternoon in late June

    It was in the cold June of the summer between my high school and college years, the end of all things familiar and the beginning of everything unknown, when I sat contemplating the next few weeks, and I saw them all spread out long in front of me, yet I felt they were so fleeting that I could gather the days in my cold little hand with minimal effort. Eight weeks between all I've ever known and the wild blue yonder called The Future. Eight weeks- sometimes I felt bored with so much time on my hands, yet at the same time the brevity of those weeks ate me up with angry sadness. I knew I was ready to leave. Mom told me she thought I was ready the night before, as she sat in the golden sunset light eating a makeshift Saturday supper, watching me ready some University health forms for the mail. "I'm not worried about you," she said, plainly and without tears, in the strong, resilient way she has mothered me for these past eighteen years and five months, "I can't wait for you to go to college."
Me either, Mommy. I still get to call you Mommy, right? I know I'm practically a college student, an adult, in the prime of my vitality and intelligence, but the scared little girl without any friends still dwells within me, warring against my present self with devilish revulsion. I still need my Mommy. I still need to cry in the shower. Along with all of that, I need to leave. I need to fly. I crave the overwhelming growth that can only come from leaving this comfortable nest I have burrowed down deep in for nearly nineteen years.
But I'm still scared. Being a grown-up means being scared. A lot. More than anyone ever lets on.
But I'm ready, so ready to be scared and challenged and do hard things.
All Things Familiar were nice, but Everything Unknown will be the best years of my life. I'm glad whoever said that high school is the time of your life was lying- if that were true, I wouldn't be ready to move on. But I am, and that is what it realized on a cold Sunday afternoon in June.

--Laura

(P.S, I love this song. Even it helps me sometimes:)

Also, Hank Green is my favorite adult who looks like a 12-year-old