Fun Fact about Lauren: She is a lime-aholic; she always has limes in her refrigerator for drinks plus a full stock of lime Tostitos chips
Coming to a close... and a beginning
April 17, 2006
I think the most bittersweet day of my life will come when I am equipped with brown boxes and Sharpies and pack up my room to move out. I am so content with my life. It finally seems that most of my hard work is paying off, and yet it's time for me to move on.
On the bright side, a decent amount of my friends are actually attending the University of Florida with me. My best friend already lives there. Yet there are those select few who serve as my motivation to not go away to college at all. Technology is at such an astounding level today, though, that I am sure I will talk to those I care about whenever I need to. I will embark on two major trips this summer with my closest friends—one to Hawaii and one to Tennessee for a three-day concert—and just knowing that helps me. It gives me more good times to look forward to after graduation and before the newness of college sinks in. There's something about senior year, about leaving, that puts a particular urgency in every senior, I think. It's amazing what a little urgency will do to a friendship—tear it down for its triviality or make it unbreakable for its genuineness. That holding true, my senior year finally produced a group of friends with whom I hope I will remain close for the rest of my life, and college is only a small portion of that life. But even knowing that will not prevent my tears from raining down the day I graduate. I should go ahead and buy stock in the Kleenex company.
Every senior is now straddling a line between now and their future. One month from today will be my final day of high school. One month later, I will be at orientation. I am not so worried about meeting people, I am friendly enough that I think I will manage. I am worried about the decisions I will have to make about my future. I am worried that one missed opportunity or one wrong turn will lead me down a less than perfect path. For one of the first times in my young life, I can make my own decisions and actually see how they play out, get a glimpse of who I will be someday. I am so excited. Opportunities like writing this column exhilarate me because I can write exactly what I am going through in this whole process and hope that maybe, just maybe, one person will read it and say, "wow, me too," and realize that senior year is more than an ending, but an even more crucial beginning.