I have an 11 year-old stepbrother. If I asked him how excited he is to go back to school this September, he would probably just make a face and shake his head, telling me nonverbally not to even mention the S-word.

I don’t even blame him.

I was the same way up until about two years ago.

Before my senior year, I always dreaded going back to school. Sure, I would be excited for the first two weeks of classes- I would get to see all my friends again, I got to wear cute new back-to-school outfits, use all my shiny new folders and unused pencils—but I knew that after that, it would be eight months of the same thing over and over, and I would get stuck.

The summer before my senior year I wasn’t dreading it like I always seemed to—I knew it was my last year of grade school, and I knew there would be a kind of freedom there that I hadn’t experienced yet. I was a senior. I was top dog—for me, that meant going places without hall passes because all the faculty trusted me, that meant never having to eat in the cafeteria, that meant hours and hours in the art rooms and art being the only thing I really had to worry about.

Not to be too cheesy, but it was everything that I thought it would be and more, all thanks to the wonderful people in my life.

The summer before my freshman year of college was a very strange combination of being incredibly excited while also feeling like I could spontaneously projectile vomit at any time. It was a bizarre mix of thinking “I’m going to college!” and “I’m going to college?” at the same time—saying goodbye to a part of my life that had been my whole identity for the past twelve years and saying hello to a new chapter that I wasn’t sure I was ready for.

This was the first time in my whole life that I was going to be more than a half an hour away from any given person that I trusted, and certainly the first time in my life I had to be completely responsible for my own well-being. It was terrifying.

College meant that I was going to be all alone, it meant the inevitable end of my relationship with my boyfriend at the time, it meant that I needed to grow up. So while I was excited to be living on my own, and taking new classes, and being surrounded by people who loved art as much as I did, a sense of dread filled me that I hadn’t ever felt before.

When I got to school and my family left me, I cried. A lot.

But things were okay. I’m alive, and I made friends who made all the difference, and I learned more about myself and about art than I have in my entire life put together, and it was incredible.

I’m not scared anymore.

So all that excitement that I mentioned before that was overshadowed by the fear of my freshman year? It’s still there, but with nothing holding it back this time.

I’m not nervous anymore, and I’m even more excited about this year than the last. I’m excited to meet more people, and to be able to spend more time with my family at school, and to learn even more—about everything.