Truly charming.

The end of the school year always makes me a little nostalgic--and this year is worse than all the rest.

I graduate this next year, and it's making me feel some type of way about this being the last time for a lot of things up here.

This year has challenged, changed, broke, taught, fixed, and shaped me like nothing really has. It was nothing like I expected it would be...and somehow everything I needed.

This year has been about new adventures, lessons learned, and finding out who I am and what's important to me. For the first time, I feel like I learned what college was really about, and finally validated what everybody tells you about college. You know those pieces of advice that come with graduating high school, or those little anecdotes that seem to happen during everybody else's college career? Hi, welcome to my junior year of college and everything I learned.

I learned the truth behind how wonderful it is to move out of the house and how much fun it is to be out on  your own. I also learned how great it feels to pull into my driveway to a bundle of my squealing sisters and forget about school for a minute. 

I learned just what everyone means when they say you'll make your best friends in college: the people I met up here have become my family. I also learned how it feels to long for the people who used to claim those spots. 

I've learned what love feels like beyond high school dances and midnight curfews, but I also learned that the real thing hurts a lot more and involves significantly more emotion. 

I know what people mean when they say you learn how to stand on your own two feet and be an adult, but I also realized that it's okay to call your mom at 1:30 in the morning about a boy. 

I know what meeting new people is like, but I also know what it feels like to say goodbye to high school friends.

I've learned about biology and mitosis, and how to start conversations with girls during sorority recruitment. 

I've read enough Caribbean Literature to last a lifetime, and I learned how to write missionary emails and letters like a pro.

I studied physics for a hot minute, and realized I actually like to cook things that aren't just Ramen or chicken nuggets. 

I read a lot of American Literature and folklore, and finally admitted that I'm really bad at taking relationship advice from anybody else, and emotional stability is not something I'm super good at. 

I wrote papers on feminism, racism, and poetic voice, and recognized that sometimes you have to do things that make you happy, that might make other people unhappy. 

This year has been full of all sorts of learning, every kind of heartbreak, a touch of denial, a lot of emotion, redefined love and loss, and brought the most overwhelming kind of contentment and satisfaction I have ever experienced. 

"The first one is the worst one," "when it rains it pours," "life is what you make it," blah, blah, blah, you name the cliche, Year Three embodied it. But nothing proved quite as true as "the third time is the charm." 

Junior year, you were truly charming. Now here's to you, senior year!