Aside from the graduation ceremony, I'm done with high school. I'm now a full fledged adult, with grown up responsibilities and decades of work and adaptations ahead of me. I'm ready for all of that, the good and the bad. I'm ready for sleepless nights studying for college exams and writing papers, I'm ready for yet another graduation in four years (this one costing significantly more than the last), and (after much bracing for it) I'm ready to lose contact with most of the people I've spent the last 12 years growing up around. But I am not only focusing on the negatives of the future, I'm not that much of a cynic.

I am ready to fully emerge myself into writing a novel without the hassle of pointless high school busywork. I believe that this time between high school and college is when I will get the most accomplished; I have days and days that I can write for hours, and really focus solely on what's being written. I'm ready to work on something that I hope people will read and discuss, and recognize that my work could be something great. But I'm looking forward to so much more than just writing, believe it or not.

I'm ready to fulfill my civic duties and vote for people that I think will make the future a better place, not just in a few years, but for the generations ahead. I'm ready to buy my own house or apartment, and make it into a place that I can look forward to returning to each day. I guess that would be considered my first real adult purchase, and the biggest up to that point. Ideally it'd be somewhere on a beach, in which I could wake up every morning an enjoy a cup of coffee as I look out to the waves. A place that I could hear the ocean as I fall asleep.

There's so much that I look forward to experiencing, and whether I realize it or not, I'm ready for it all. This is when I start to make my life my own, and I'm sure as hell gonna make my effort count. Out of it all, I'm ready to turn my idealistic future into a reality.