As I'm writing this, it's currently 5:07 AM.

I start my Full Internship at a high school in a couple of hours, and my classes next week.

I have to get up this early to get some other work done before my family wakes up. Then I have to make the 50 minute drive across backroads and bridges to get to my site. Then, everyday at 3 or 4, my teaching will turn into odd jobs, homework, cleaning, more driving, penny pinching, and trying to spend a decent time with my wife and son.

But I only have to do this one more time.

Please don't mistake me. I'm grateful I am where I am and how I have been blessed to have the opportunity to have an education... and the means to get one. I've busted my butt and I'm exhausted. My wife is exhausted. I'm sure on more than one occasion she has thought about how nice it would be if I dropped out, but she would never ask me to do so.

Still, as I sit here at my desk, trolling through bills and paperwork and dates, sipping on cold coffee, I can't help but begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

My path towards a college degree has not been easy. It's been full of bumps, hills, valleys, and unexpected twists and turns. Not that I would go back and change them either though.

I know we all have our war stories, and I'm not here to write about battle scars or that one really long paper I had to write.

I guess today I'm writing because this has to be the beginning of the end. This has to be the last time. It is my last semester.

I can't believe I'm writing those words.

For those who have already graduated, you can probably read this and smile, knowing how close I am.

For those who are like me and are beginning to start your last semester, I wish you nothing but the best and I encourage you to keep chugging ahead.

And for those who aren't there yet, and maybe feel like you will never get there, you will. Gosh, you will. It'll take a piece of you to finish it, but if you are strong and know how to sacrifice, you can do it.

I've often told my wife that I started off my college career flying high up like a perfectly functioning airplane. And I'm going to end it by crashing through the finish line, wings torn and windows broken.

But I will cross that finish line in December. And I will probably cry when it happens.