from a fellow college girl.

So, I woke up yesterday morning, stretched once or twice or ten times, and flipped open my calendar. 

For those of you who didn't know, it's August. 

Summer went in the blink of an eye, and now I'm ninety-nine point nine percent done with my degree. By gosh is that scary to think about. 

"

This isn't a new chapter for you," my friend Micaylee told me as we sipped burnt orange tea out of glass jars, catching each other up on our summers. "This is like a new book for you."

I've lived the last few years plugging slowly away through papers, textbooks, exams, CLEPS, that one math class, and yes, it dragged. Now that it's finally here, though? All those people saying that cliche thing like, "Hold on, Sierra; take your time; it goes fast." Yeah. They were right. Maybe not as far as studies go, since I'm still thinking they took quite long enough, thankyouverymuch, but the last few years between high school graduation and college? Those flew far faster than I ever dreamed they would.

 My own sister is heading off to college in no more than nineteen days, and just that fact alone rocks my little world.

 But there comes a point in time when you wrap up your career as what the world would define as a student (trust me, I plan on spending the rest of my life as a student), and one small piece of you screams doubt at who you are and where you're supposed to be. How on earth do you even know if you picked the right degree? And if you haven't been completely and totally true to yourself the last few years, how do you meander your way through to figure out how to do that?

Alongside our doings the however-many years, our whole lives have been spent dreaming of that ideal moment where we know without a shadow of a doubt who were are. Where we want to be, of our cozy or fabulous little place in NYC or L.A., London or Paris, our list of places to go and see, our dream job. And all of this seems so close, right at our fingertips almost.

 Last fall I had a glimpse of where I would be this upcoming fall. Ironically enough, I was only finally able to wrap that decision up

last week

; because we're living in the decade where we tell stories and figure it out as we go along. We may plan ahead, but chances are we're still going to wonder if we're heading on the right path or not, even if we know beyond a shadow of a doubt where we're supposed to be. Plus there's the struggle to think about how to make ends meet.

 I think we're allowed to be afraid and apprehensive. But we should also realize that we're free to be enthusiastic and brave and fearless alongside those emotions. I myself am a more spontaneous soul, but lately my need for certainty and control has wrestled with my nature.

The uncertainty has become absolutely and positively terrifying alongside the emotions of excitement and anticipation. And that's o.k. Just so long as we don't let the fear take over our lives.

 These past few years have overtaken me in what seems like a few brief moments, and life is going on. In another five or ten years, I'll look on this completely new book as just another chapter- one as a turning point, for sure. I know I'll more than likely laugh. And think about the current chapter I'll be in then.

from a fellow college girl, with love. 

xx