By Lily Jaquith

How did four years turn into two weeks? The days to graduation have melted away and it’s nearly time for me to walk across that stage and become a high school graduate.

I keep thinking of all the things I want to do before leaving home and going to college, and the time I have to do everything keeps getting shorter. However, the list of things I want to do when I get to college keeps getting longer. I find myself looking forward to more than I will miss. Although it’ll be difficult to leave the place I’ve love, I can’t wait for the new experiences I have ahead.

Leaving Edmonds is going to be a huge change in my world. I’ve lived here my entire life and I don’t know anything different. Here I know where all the good pizza places are and I recognize the checkers at my local QFC. Learning Bellingham is a whole new adventure ahead of me, but I can’t wait. I want to explore every little part of Bellingham and know it as well as I know Edmonds. It’s an added learning curve apart from that of college, but the experience will be exciting and new. It’ll be difficult leaving the place I grew up, but I’m looking forward to navigating through my new surroundings.

Living away from home will by far be the strangest part of college. I have a good relationship with both my parents; it will be hard not to see either one of them every day. There will be no one there to make me my favorite meal after a bad day. My mom won’t be able to give me a hug when I’m going crazy over a guy. I’ll be on the phone with my dad after a great episode of “Survivor” instead of watching it with him. I’ll even miss my sister, who drives me up the wall. I spend most of my time with her and even though being away means less fighting, it also means not as much fun with her. It’s going to be really difficult to be away from my family.

While most people would expect me to be worried about moving away from my friends, I’m not. After talking to several friends that have been through the transition from high school to college, I am sure the people I want to remain in my life will. Yes, it will be hard not seeing them all the time at school, but that can only make me grow closer to my friends and enjoy the short time I have with them on school breaks. After high school it will be easy to see those I actually have something in common with and those I spent time with just because we went to school together. As difficult as a change that may be, I have no doubt it’ll be a change for the better. There are plenty of new friends to make at Western.

On Saturday I had the amazing opportunity to meet some students I’ll be attending school with at Western next fall. We spent hours just talking about everything from movies to our pets. Spending time with these incredible people helped me see that the experiences I’ll have next year far outweigh the hardships of leaving home. We’ll spend hours getting lost in Bellingham, trying to find the perfect ice cream shop. I know there’s someone who will be willing to teach me how to cook more than a grilled cheese. There’s already been some fun prank planning in the works as well. It’s great to know that I already have connects up north. It’s less of an unknown now. The adventures I’m going to have with these new people make me anxious to leave for Bellingham every day. I’m ready for the great experiences I’m going to have in the next part of my life.

There will certainly be things about my current life that I’ll miss. Being able to see my parents every day, messing with my sister and spending time with the friends I have now. But, the new adventures ahead of me and the new people I’ll have the chance to experience them with make the transition extremely exciting.

Lily Jaquith is a senior at Edmonds-Woodway High School. Next year she plans to go to Western Washington University to study teaching drama and perhaps minor in journalism. She loves working in children’s theater and has been a part of Madrona Children’s Theater for nine years. In her free time, Lily writes for her personal blog and enjoys social networking on Twitter (follow @LilyJaquith).