Impending Doom or Bright Light?: My advice and feelings on Graduating

Whether you are graduating high school, college, or graduate school, the fear of the unknown can cause unwanted stress. I am graduating from college in less than 2 months and let me tell you senioritis and longing to stay in college is a weird feeling like I have never felt before. My whole life I have hated, dreaded, and distanced changed. You could say I'm exaggerating as most people don't like change but this is coming from a person who cried when my parents traded their suburban for another suburban. And yes, I stayed in the car for three hours contemplating life after.

When a change in my life happens big or small, I always feel I have an internal clock counting down the days until the big day. I cannot tell if this is my way of preparing for the change of counting down the days until the real panic sets in. It's not a very healthy habit for me but hey one meditation and green juice at a time.

A teacher in high school once said to me " Panicking about a change doesn't make the change go away, it only makes it more painful". And while I still have a glimmer of hope that my mind does have superpowers I cannot alter or change my life. So what to do about the pending change?

Well for me I look towards the stages of grief. Dramatic I know but if you think about it like this "part of my life is over and it is time to heal and grow from it" it really does connect. Getting to acceptance may take a while but feeling all of those feelings in my opinion is better than holding them in. Once I feel these feelings I can now look towards the next stage of my life as a new opportunity, a bright light, and not an impending doom that I haven't given much thought to.

Secondly, I look for advice from others. For most people in my life who have gone through this change, it is not a seamless transition. For the first time in my conscious life, I am going to be going through life not looking for my locker or studying for the next big test; that part of my life is in the past. And while I am all for no more tests, having this schedule that is perfectly laid out by my teachers and school allows me to not make every decision for myself because most things in my life are up to me. And now after college, I find every decision I make is up to me. So looking for comfort in others who had to make all these decisions like I have to can help give me some clarity in choosing the correct answer for me.

And lastly, enjoying every moment in the present, good or bad. In this heavily social media-dominated world it can feel like everyone is always having so much fun and it can make me believe that every moment has to be. Yet not every moment can be. But being present to whatever happens to me in the next seven weeks can allow me to enjoy the fleeting minutes of bad college bars and long lectures.

So enjoy the last moments and look towards the future and remember you can't enjoy the bright light of the future without acknowledging and comforting the past. Wish me luck because I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm enjoying the beauty of that.