Today. Is. Our. Day.

Song of The Day: Under The Lights by Cassio Monroe (Graduation Version)

It's been a long road, you guys. It has been a beautiful and not so beautiful thirteen years, but you know what? We made it! This is our day, the day that we have worked so hard towards all of our life. As we part and go our separate ways, remember to cherish every moment from our journey. Whether the memories are good or bad, they have shaped us somehow. They have led us to where we are today. Do not think of graduating as a way to get away from this tiny town or from the people that have drove us crazy over the years, think of it as something you can check off from a long list of things you want to accomplish in life. I am going to miss this, all of this: the hallways, the yearbook room, my favorite teachers, the horrible cafeteria food, and my friends. Someone told me that we are only friends with the people we are close to in high school because we see them seven hours for five days out of the week. I hope that is not true. That is the scariest part about graduating--not seeing your friends as much. I remember my blog posts from earlier in the school year. I was crying and stressed about finding out who my real friends are. Now that I have found them, I am afraid to let go. This year, I have become friends with people I said I hate because others said they weren't cool enough. I think that I have grown mentally and emotionally. I no longer care what people think of me because I am friends with a certain person. I am my own person, and I am smiling right now because I know that this is true. Tonight, as we walk across that stage at Windsor High School, I want you all to know this it has been an absolute pleasure being able to spend some of the best days of my life with all of you. Believe it or not, each and every one of you in the class of 2014 has said or done something that I will remember. Believe that. I know today will be full of tears of joy and laughter. I am just so proud of each and every one of us. This will be a night to remember. Now, today would not just be right if I didn't end this sappy post with one of my favorite quotations that I have been waiting to use for the past five years. It fits perfectly.

“Today’s the day my life begins. Today I become a citizen of the world. Today I become a grown up. Today I become accountable to someone other than myself and my parents. Accountable for more than my grades. Today, I become accountable to the world. To the future. To all the possibilities that life has to offer. Starting today, my job is to show up wide eyed and willing and ready. For what, I don’t know. For anything. For everything. To take on life. To take on love. To take on the responsibility and possibility. Today, my friends, our lives begin. And, I for one can’t wait.” -Grey's Anatomy

Congratulations To The Class of 2014 

Torn

Song of The Day: One by Ed Sheeran 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix9NXVIbm2A
I feel like I am on the edge of a precipice. I am at the point where if I am sitting alone and begin to drown myself in memories of friendships and school, I will come tumbling down. Yes, this is how I feel about school coming to an end.
One moment I am freaking ecstatic because I am graduating from high school in exactly twenty-five days. The next moment, I could be listening to Good Riddance by Green Day and I will feel the tears welling up in my eyes. For some odd reason, that song still makes me cry after all these years. I feel as if I am torn. I want to leave, but then I don't; I want to branch out and meet new friends, but I still want to keep my current ones. It is like I do not know what I want anymore. I have sat down many times over the past few weeks on my bed trying to rationalize things. I try to figure out what the hell is my problem. Back in September, I remember being so joyous and ready to be finished with high school, but now, I am sort of rethinking my situation. Don't get me wrong, I am most definitely going to miss the dear WHS, but it's been a long four years. I wish I had the right words to sum up how I feel about graduating, but honestly, I don't. Just this morning I was sitting in my first block class, and I was thinking, thinking myself to tears. I was thinking about senior night live, senior teach day, and the rest of the senior activities. Right then it occurred to me. It is totally fine to cry about graduating. The tears that I cry, they are tears of joy in disguise. I just feel like there is a flood of emotions inside of me just waiting for the dam to break.
I was recently talking to my school librarian, and she said that all of this does not become completely clear to you until you are laying in bed in your empty room the night before you leave for college. Just thinking about it now makes me want to cry. I wanted to tell her that I feel that now. I feel like now it is becoming so clear to me that it is almost over and a new chapter is about to begin. I am just torn between opening that new book and staying in the old one until I am ready to move on. We all say that we are ready to graduate, we are ready to get out into our own, and we are ready to reach new heights, but in reality, we are all scared. I know that I am and I have no issue acknowledging it. I am 100% terrified of the new life I am about to begin soon. I know that I am going to have to adjust to new things, but it is all a part of the process. It is a part of the process called growing up. I keep telling myself that I am so damn happy about graduating that I cannot stop crying. Inside of my tears are traces of happiness, accomplishment, and vacillation. The tears of happiness come from deep within me because I am happy that I am graduating. How could one not be happy about graduating from high school? The tears of accomplishment come directly from my heart because I am just so proud of myself. If I looked into my future during my junior year, I never would have believed the direction that my life is going in now. The feeling of accomplishment feels so lovely because I am just one step closer to my future. And then there are the tears of vacillation. The sensation of being torn between wanting to stay and wanting to go is so scary. Not knowing what can and will happen next is unnerving. There was a time when I would have called myself stupid for saying that I am scared to leave high school. These past four years have been the epitome of heaven and hell on Earth. Some moments have been better than others, but I don't think I would ever trade it. What we go through and experience shape us more than anything. Eventually, everything will play out. Until it does, I will be counting down the days until I graduate and contemplating how I should feel about all of this!

-Summer L.