I remember when I was little, all I wanted to do was grow up. I wanted to make my own decisions and I wanted to do whatever I wanted to do. I didn’t want to go to bed when my parents told me I had to. I didn’t want to eat my vegetables. I didn’t want to do homework if I didn’t feel like doing homework.

As happens to everyone, little me eventually grew up into current me, a twenty year old college student who is suddenly supposed to be an adult! And my oh my have the tables turned. I now crave healthy food if I have a week too busy for any meals not to be obtained from a drive through. I now wish I had someone forcing me to go to bed early. And well, I still don’t want to do homework when I don’t feel like doing homework.

One of the things little me never considered about adulthood was the decisions I would have to make about my own life. When I was little, I glamourized the idea of getting to make my own decisions, but I never considered the scary thought that I would also one day be making decisions that affected me on a longer term basis.

It’s a terrifying thing to have two options before you and to have to pick just one. The older I get, the more valuable my time seems to become. Less and less can I randomly close my eyes and point at an option and do it, because, as I race towards full-fledged adulthood, my range of free time is ever narrowing.

There were many questions, there were many fears. I spent many nights lying awake late, tossing and turning, trying to figure out which option I was going to pursue for the summer. For my last summer. Possibly the most important summer of my life, and I had no idea how I wanted to spend it. I had no idea how God wanted me to spend it. And it was frustrating, and it was one of the most adult lessons I have had to learn so far.

I wish I could time travel back to third grade so that I could shake little me’s shoulders as I try to explain how important summers suddenly seem to be when you’re running out of them. But, since time travel is yet impossible, here I was, torn between two great options, wishing nothing more but that I could choose both. So last weekend, with a pen in hand and a paper on my desk, I armed myself with the only solid pros and cons list I have ever made in my life. And I used my most grown up self and made the tough decision of what to do with my last summer.

I am excited about my decision, and I can’t wait until it begins and I can’t wait to see where it’ll take me. But I am also full of apprehension. I will never be able to be 100% sure that I made the correct choice. At this point, I can only hope and pray and be excited for the option that I did decide to go with. And I am, I am excited for this summer and for the program I will be returning back to! But part of me will not be able to let go the fact that this is my final summer as a person.

To my final summer, I am ready for you. I will enjoy every second of you, even the seconds that are the opposite of enjoyable. I will not take this summer for granted, and I will live it out joyously. And then, when it’s over, I will take my new-found decision making skills, and hope that they will be helpful to me in the end of my schooling and in the beginning of the entirely-adult life awaiting me on the opposite side of a diploma.