It’s finals time, which mean the end of the school year. The time of the year when all we see on social media are our friends count downs till they wear their caps and gowns and talk the stage to get their degrees. Four years ago we would have thought that we would be one of those social media posting students. But for a reason, that is all different for each of us, we are not graduating on time.

Throughout this semester I have had some time to dwell on this new fact of life that I am facing. I’ll say it again. I am not graduating on time. That one sentence was the hardest thing for me to say for the longest time. I was in denial. My life was not how I had pictured it. Suddenly, it was like the end of the world to me. It was like I had failed myself. But what I didn’t see was that I was the only one putting myself down like this.

It is not the end of the world. Being in school longer than four years is becoming the norm. There is nothing wrong with taking more time to finish your degree. Life happens. There are events in our lives that we cannot control. We need to stop being so hard on ourselves, college is hard enough as it is without us putting ourselves down for a bad test grade or having to retake a class.

I’m not going to lie, I’ve gotten jealous of my friends who are graduating on time. I get on Facebook or Twitter and it seems like all I see are my friends posting their cords or their never ending count downs till their big day when they become alumni. It sucks, I know it does. Seeing all your friends getting excited and thinking “that should be me”. At one point it felt like they all were mocking me. Making those post to shove it in my face. But I’ve come to terms with those feelings. They are excited and want to share with the world that they have finally gotten to the end of their college days. If I was in the same boat as them, I might be posting about my success as well.

As this semester comes to an end, I’ve come to terms with my situation. Not graduating means I have more time to get ready for the real world. I get more time to not have to worry about paying off my loans yet. I’ve realize that now I’m okay with this situation. It’s okay that I have to take an extra semester to finish my degree. It’s okay that I will not be walking the stage with all of my friends. It’s okay to be jealous of them. But most importantly it’s not okay to be down on myself for this. Everything happens for a reason. I might not know those reasons, or be happy about those reasons, but they happen.