And it begins..

You look out to the crowd, to all the "adults" you just spend the last 12 years with, and it really doesn't seem real that, come September, you won't be picking out the perfect outfit, primping your hair and fixing yourself up just right to impress that crush you've had since fourth grade and trying to prove to everyone how awesome you had become over the last two months. Instead, you'll be going to college, starting a new job, even traveling to a foreign country. They hand you a piece of paper, and you go take a seat back in your last assigned seat in your high school career.

That's it? THAT is what I did all this for? Some measly piece of paper that you could have paid the creepy dude at the library to forge for you?

I planned to go to college, live the high life of frat parties and breeze through all my classes. Graduate and get a great job, how awesome and easy that sounded!

Long story short: I hated it.

And here I am now, four and a half years later I have been married for two and a half years with a beautiful baby girl, living in the blustery, snow covered north woods of New York and I couldn't ask for more. Of course I am still in school, and nearing graduation, but no frat parties or "high life" for me!

But that's okay, because most of all I think I was craving life in itself. Something to live for, something to make living worth it. Sure there are nights where I wonder "Why the hell didn't I just throw on some heels and a skimpy skirt and head to that frat house?!" but all in all, I think I did all right.

From a 17 year old high school graduate to a 22 year old wife and mother who has lived in three states, is nearing a Bachelor of Science in Accounting Information System, successfully runs her own direct sales business, is a "crunchy" (for those who don't know what that means, I'll get to it at a later date ;) ) and thrifty momma, and can look at a shooting star without having a wish to make, I think I have more to be proud of, and more to look forward to, than many of my fellow graduates who sat in the audience that day.

When you really look at it, I guess you could say I screwed up my own plans. But hey, if that's the worst I ever screw up I guess I'm doing alright!