Senior.

Sounds like a military officer, not a 17-year-old.

College?

"Don't question me, young lady, you have your future ahead of you. A college education is the only way you're going to make it out there."

"Out there. . ."

But what's out there? What lies ahead of me? Will I survive? I'm just a kid. I don't belong out there. It seems that just yesterday I was a shy, timid, weary 14-year-old, not yet ready to accept the title of freshman, nor the expectations of high school and the demands of life. I look back, and I see everything's changed. But were they good changes? Were they changes that will make me a better person? I can't tell. I wonder if things would be the same if I hadn't changed. I fought: but it happened; it happens to everybody. So how come nobody told me what it would be like? That was for me to discover on my own. If I was only told and never saw for myself, I'd still be a scared freshman going nowhere in life.

Life. Egad, what a word. Feels like a holy presence drops from the sky every time I try to think of such a vast word. Thinking, deciding, functioning on my own: a separate entity from the warm, comforting feathers of my family's wings. So who's going to take care of me? Who's going to lead me, tell me where I went wrong, advise me what to do? Hello?

ECHO . . . ECHO . . . ECHO . . .



Me. . .n