I’m leaving for college.

Wow. That feels really surreal and strange to say. It was just 2014. I was just a freshman.

153 days.

I’ll be walking on a stage, grabbing my diploma, and shaking the hands of my superiors. I will be wishing some of my friends farewell forever. I will be hugging some of my teachers for the last time. The words “good luck” will be said more times than I could ever even imagine. I will be dressed in green, silky material from head to toe, with a tassel on the right side of my cap. The numbers two, zero, one, and eight will be in a straight line with the green and white cords.

I will listen to some of my classmates give speeches. I will watch the senior video, packed full of memories under the Friday Night Lights, Senior Retreat, Dinner Dance, Prom, and so many more events. I will tear up and smile at the friends I have grown to know over the last twelve years.

I will be so proud to see the classmates I have grown to love so much walk across the stage and receive their diplomas.

“Alexa Grace Monaghan.”

My name will finally be called. Shaking with nerves and excitement, I will finally hold the possession that has always been prized in the eyes of high schoolers: my diploma sleeve.

My family and friends could cheer. I will look at the audience and smile. I finally achieved what I’ve been working for my whole life.

I will turn my tassel to the left.

I will go to the Senior All Night Party. I will be ready to have one last great night with the people I have lived around my whole life; I will push away the thoughts of moving out and leaving them all behind, for now.

I will see the friends I have always hung out with during the summer. As August creeps closer, I will continue to smile and enjoy the time I have left in Grand Rapids.

Move out day is inching closer to me. I feel my brain’s anxiety kick in.

I will begin to pack up my bedroom. The room I have made my own with the walls the color of a calm ocean on a stormy day. The room with the mint green paisley-patterned comforter that will be packed away in the basement. The room that my sister will turn into an art studio, or the room my brother will turn into a gaming room.

I will be stuffing those thoughts away in the crevices of the boxes along with my clothes. I will look at the room I have smiled in, cried in, played in, and sung in.

I will sleep in my bed for one last night as a permanent resident of my home.

I will wake up and take one last look around my room. I will smile and cry.

Move in day will arrive. I will be making my last trip from my old home to my new-to-me dorm. I will be saying goodbye to the people that have taken care of me for so long, and leave them with a smile and a, “I’ll call you when I’m settled in.”

I will meet the girl with whom I’ll be sharing a room for a year. I will see how it will play out between us: friends or enemies?

I will go to my first college class.

I will walk into a new classroom. I’ll think “wow, I thought the high school was bad as a freshman, and look at me nowa��, as I’m lugging my new and expensive books in my backpack through campus.

The cycle will start again. I will be a freshman. A college freshman. A little fish in a big pond, wondering how my life will change again.

I will get through it all.

153 days.

153 days until I begin to realize the life I have always known is really ending.

Only 153 days until my new life begins.