In a few short days, I will officially be a college student. As weird as it is for my parents and grandparents, who still think of me as their chubby, bald baby, as weird as it is for friends of my parents who remember when I was "this small," and as weird as it is for people meeting me for the first time, struggling to reconcile the baby-faced, diminutively-sized person in front of them with their idea of what a college student should look like, it's even stranger for me.
I'm not ready.
It's strange because, though I may be loath to admit it in front of my parents, I'm not ready for college. Oh, I'm packed and prepared. I'm ready to take on college courses, make new friends, and live on my own. I'm ready for everything that would make a person think, from the outside, that I'm as ready as ready could be.
But inside, I'm terrified. I'm not ready to leave many of the people who made me who I am and who have changed my life for the better. I'm not ready for the possibility that all of our promises to stay in touch and see each other at least on breaks won't come to fruition.
I will likely never see some of you again.
As hard as it is to think and put down in words, this is the sad reality. No matter how many of those promises we make, some will inevitably go unfulfilled. We'll grow apart naturally, not at the fault of either one of us individually, but it will still happen.
But that won't change the impact you have had on my life or the impact I have had on yours. Even if we never say another word to each other, we will always have our memories and my life will still forever have been bettered by your presence in my life.
Thank you.
Regardless of whether I never see you again in this life or if we stay close through college and someday raise our kids as friends, you have all positively impacted my life in a way that words cannot express the fullness of my gratitude.
Thank you for the smiles and the laughs and the cries, too. Thank you for hugs and photos and memories and forevers. Thank you for every little thing.
Au Revoir. I like this better than goodbye, because it directly translates to "to the see again."
I love you, and I always will.