I can't believe I graduated college a year ago.

The last year has gone by faster than any year prior. It has been filled with adventure and spontaneity, but it has also been filled with anxiety of the unknown. It has been a transition, for sure. But I am finally beginning to find my place as a working adult.

Watching friends and family graduate this year reminds me how it feels. The week prior to my graduation was the happiest week of my life, full of great times, sentimental talks, and self-reflection. I remember how it felt -- the anxiety, the excitement.

For every recent or soon-to-be graduate, I would like to share with you a journal entry I wrote last year just a few days before graduating from WWU. I hope that it resonates with you, relates to you, and gets you reflecting on your time as a student and thinking about your future as...well, anything you aspire to be.

I am sitting alone in a crowded coffee shop. I wanted to sit outside to look over the bay on this beautiful day in Bellingham, but by the time my coffee was ready, all the tables outside had been taken. Perhaps it worked out for the best, because now I sit upon the indoor balcony admiring the aesthetically pleasing architectural drawings on the wall.

I should not be here. I should be studying for my final on Thursday. I should be saving my money. I should be going to the gym. I should not be here. Yet, as I walk to the bus stop to make my way to the Student Rec Center, it only takes me a split second to turn around, grab my wallet from my apartment, hop in my car, and drive here for no reason other than because I thought to do it. I order an americano and get myself a slice of banana bread, and it was delicious. I finish them way too quickly. I think I may go buy myself more.

At first I feel guilty for indulging myself in these luxuries. But then I think: I am graduating college in five days, and at 20 years old. I can eat two slices of banana bread if I please.

I am scared. I am scared because I am realizing that the “light at the end of the tunnel” is a myth. A fallacy. I slaved away at my education and my responsibilities to finish them quickly and just be done, as if life from here on out will be leisurely. Five years ago I thought of where I’d be on this day, in this place in my life, and now, here I am worrying about where I’ll be in another five years. The journey doesn’t end. It’s not leisure from here on out. Thinking that the rest of this life will be an easy stroll is as nonsensical as believing in an eternal “happily ever after” after marriage. Now that I’ve finished my college career, I have new goals, new aspirations, new anxieties and new mindsets. They sure as hell aren't the ones I was anticipating.

This place in life is exciting, yet more anxiety-provoking than I could have imagined. Being the planner that I am, facing this vague and ambiguous road ahead of me puts a pit in my stomach larger than any I’ve experienced before. But, if there’s anything I’ve learned in the past few years that seem to have flown by in a blur, it’s that spontaneity is the greatest asset life has to offer. Breaking the routine is what makes each day unique and distinct from each other. And spontaneity can only occur within the unplanned, the unknown and ambiguous.

College provides the security of potential. Over the last few years, I’ve been allowed to say I’ll do one thing or another and just desiring to do those things was enough. But now, I look upon the dawn of a world where my only credibility is that which is earned. In the “real” world, talk is not enough. It is not enough to say I will do something or go somewhere. Fulfillment, joy, and respect is earned in my actions, in following through with what I say I will do. And in understanding this new philosophy, I have found myself enjoying my last quarter as a college student even more so than my first.

In understanding this new philosophy, I have found myself driving nine hours with my roommate, no specific destination in mind but just to see where the road takes us. I have found myself awake late on a Tuesday night and deciding to go to the Cove just because an ocean breeze sounded particularly pleasing. I have ended up at the Canadian border, receiving odd looks from the patrol when I tell them I am going to Canada just for the sake of going to Canada. I spend more time with my friends. I try new foods. I quit smoking pot because it keeps me from following through, it inhibits my ability to spontaneously get up and go. Even if my wallet is thinner, my gas tank is emptier, and my feet are tired from walking so far, I have never been happier in my life.

I have found myself spending $200 on a ticket to a music festival when in only five days I will owe my university 60 times that much. I have found myself one month away from being on a plane with my best friend, the best sidekick I could have ever asked for. We are leaving behind the habits, the routines, the cell phone connection, the drugs, the friends. We are leaving all these comforts behind and traveling through Europe and Iceland just because we can. And when I get back to Seattle, I’m turning right back around on a 17-hour flight to New Zealand for God knows how long.

In understanding this new philosophy, I have found myself alone in a crowded coffee shop, perfectly in love with my own company. I have written this entry whose words baffle me as I read them because I cannot believe how suddenly excited I am that I am not done. This is not the end of the road, and that makes me both terrified and delighted. I am grateful for my college experience and grateful for the experiences to come. If I have learned nothing else in my 20 years of life, I have learned that happiness comes from doing, not aspiring.