After junior year ended, one question has been posed to me more times than I can count. Are you ready to graduate? I, of course, always answer with a swift yes, and continue the usual conversation that follows. I tell the person every major plan I have post-graduation. One day, however, I really started to think about that question, and if I have answered it correctly. Am I really ready to graduate, or am I just answering yes to avoid thinking about my future?

So, now I am sitting here writing this story, trying really hard to wrap my head around the question. There is so much to consider that I don’t really know where to start.

Yes, I know what I want to do after I graduate and what field I want to go into someday, but the big blank left unfilled is if I am mentally ready to leave behind the routine that I have followed the past twelve years of my life? I think and think, but I am never really sure of the answer.

The good thing is, I still have plenty of time to find my answer. While most signs point to no, I have plenty of things to do to make that answer a definite yes by the time May rolls around.

I am, however, more ready than my family is. I can’t bring up anything related to graduation or my senior solo without my younger sister bursting into tears.  I don’t think she is quite ready for her favorite sister, granted I am her only sister, to leave her. We are very close and the thought of me being hours away from her is kind of terrifying. Plus, my parents tend to tease us, in a good way of course, and I can’t imagine what it will be like for her to receive all of it.

So my answer to the age old question “are you ready to graduate”, is yes and no. In some aspects I am completely ready to move on to the next chapter in my life, but in others, I have so many things to learn and accomplish. But hey, I guess that is what the next seven months are for.