College Applications...

Lately, the all consuming college application process has been on the front burner of everyone's minds, including mine. It seemed like we went from asking each other, can I borrow your blue crayon? I need to draw the rain, to asking, where are you applying? When are your apps due?

I think part of it is custom. We're Seniors, we have the privilege of being the only ones in the school to talk about how adult we are. But I think it's also partially insecurity and nervousness. Whenever I ask someone where they're applying, it trips off the tip of my tongue with an edge of uneasy curiosity. It's a weird thing to contemplate the idea of having whole mountain ranges and rivers and lakes and countrysides to separate you from the first 17 years of your life.

I'm excited as I am nervous, don't get me wrong. But who's to say that I'm even ready to go to college? I mean, I feel ready and I think I'm ready but gut feelings and thoughts do not equate to readiness. I thought I was ready to cut my own hair when I was four years old but, and we have the pictures to prove it, I was grossly mistaken. Luckily for me, and for you and for everyone else, if you fall off your bike (or cut your hair off, or wear bell bottoms, or fall in wrong with the wrong person, or any other mistake you could possibly and will likely make in your lifetime), you can always get back up and try again.

-A