Scheduling Conflicts

Today, I registered for my last semester of classes. My last semester ever.

I didn't want to give the registrar my course form. I'd had it balled up in my pocket all morning, and as I uncrumpled it and smoothed the edges to hand it to her, this little ball of trepidation I'd had inside my stomach crumpled and tightened, like one of those vacuum-sealed bags. As I handed it to her, I was so scared.

My last semester.

I've spent the last four years knowing exactly what I needed to do; to get through the week; the month; the semester. What I needed to take next to fulfill the looming requirements that were always unattainable. Graduation was a word with no context, no meaning. It was something that would never happen, not to me. But lately it's becoming real, and today, knowing that I have decided, for the last time ... well, that's weird. As usual, my schedule is overloaded and required approval. As usual, I've too many classes and ambitions and probably won't be sleeping much. But I know that's how I work best, and I'm okay with it. The complaining and occasional tearing up? It's all part of the routine. I thrive under pressure and I know it; get bored without it. I need to be constantly on the go. And that's been my life, and so soon it'll be changing. I won't have that clear-cut sense of direction anymore, that path of things I need to do to get where I'm going, because I no longer know where I'm going. After May my life, more than ever, will be entirely in God's hands, rather than my own. And that's how it ought to be.

It's a scary thing, letting go. But it is time.

There are so many options for me after May, so many opportunities, so many dreams to be chased. What right do I have to be afraid, instead of gut-tingling excited? The answer is none. No right at all.