The End of Another Chapter

This week I will graduate from college...

Those words still seem so unreal to me.

I've been asked so many times this last week how I feel about graduating, what my plans are, what do I want to do with my degree. I'll be honest...I have no idea.

I really don't feel anything quite yet except for complete shock that the day I have waited four and half years for is just in front of me staring me in the face. I want to be excited and happy, but there are butterflies in my stomach. I want to be anxious or nervous, but it never comes.

I am sure that on Wednesday at 11:35 it will all finally hit me. I'm sure that I'll cry, happy tears, and take a moment to just walk around campus one last time. I'm sure I'll feel relieved and happy all at the same time. Those feelings just aren't here yet, and that's ok.

This week I was asked one very interesting question, though. One that I did have a definite answer to.

"So, you're graduating in a week. What have you been thinking about lately?"

The question hit me. The fact that someone would ask that blew me away. What was I thinking about? So many things, but there was one thing that had been on my mind for weeks, something that I had never told anyone about.

Right after graduating high school I came to college a very different person than I had been in high school. I had been through several trials and been saved, and God was constantly teaching me new things. About two weeks after my graduation I was living in California working as a nanny. One day I received an e-mail from someone I had gone to high school with for a while. Most of the e-mail didn't mean anything to me, but being the kind of person who lives to prove people wrong and accept any challenge that I am given there was one phrase of that e-mail that has stuck with me to this day.

"So you're going to college in the fall. Good luck. You'll never make it."

I took that as my biggest challenge yet.

I shared with that person that the phrase from that e-mail was what had been on my mind. Not because I was thinking of giving up or giving that person the satisfaction of what they had told me, but  because I knew that on a week I would prove that person totally wrong.

In four days I will graduate from college and receive my degree. The road was not easy, but no one ever said that it would be. I have overcome many obstacles and trials to get where I am today, and I am thankful. To the person who told me I could never do it, thank you. Thank you for motivating me to succeed, go to college, and finish strong.