Today I got accepted into my second law school. It’s fantastic and relieving news, especially considering that I decided that law school was even something I wanted to do kind of late in the game. But even though I’m extremely thankful, I can’t help but feel a twinge of fear.

The last time I sat at this same precipice, waiting for decision letters from schools and trying to plan my future, I felt a bit more excited about it. I had been in the same public school system with basically all the same faces for 12-ish years at that point and topped it all off with a pretty lackluster high school experience, so I was just about ready for a change. I was ready to go off and be my own person in a new place where I knew basically no one and could start over fresh. That’s not to say that I wasn’t at all nervous, but I felt ready.

Going to college is a big thing — you’re going off on your own for the first time and really starting to make decisions about your future — but it feels so small now in comparison to planning my future post-college. College felt like the obvious next step after high school, a given way to proceed with my life. Once I got there, I would be surrounded by other people in that same confusing state of pseudo-adulthood, but we would all be ok because really we were getting thrown into grown-up summer camp and not the real world.

And now here I am, a couple of months out from graduating, the same as where I was four years ago. Chiefs vs. 49ers. Trump vs. Biden. So much is the same but it feels so different at the same time as I prepare to start working toward my career in earnest by going to law school. I know that I’ve done this before, started over in a new city, but this time I just don’t feel ready.

On paper, I have everything I need to be able to face this next phase of my life. I can cook and do my laundry and make my own doctor’s appointments without having to ask for my parents’ help. I’ve developed academic tools through rigorous classes that have prepared me to handle difficult classes in law school. A year being both editor-in-chief of the Trinitonian and president of Mock Trial has made me unfortunately very experienced in crisis management.

The thing is, I’ve really grown to like my life here. I feel like I’ve just gotten used to being at Trinity and living in San Antonio since Covid made my first year pretty lacking in the “Trinity experience.” I’ve had my fair share of ups and downs, to be sure, and there are some things I’m okay with leaving behind (another year in charge of Trinitonian and mock trial would actually kill me). On the other hand, there are things that I want to see through, places I’ve been meaning to go but haven’t gone to and people I’m not quite ready to say goodbye to.

Last weekend, my mom and my little brother came to visit so that my brother could participate in the Tower Day scholarship competition. We got dinner together once the competition was done and then said our goodbyes and hugged (unwillingly, in my brother’s case) so that they could Uber back to their hotel and get to bed before their early morning flight.

I got into my car to drive myself home, but first I had to sit there and just cry for a second. It’s always a little sad to have to say goodbye to visiting family as an out-of-stater, since I don’t get many chances to see them during the semester but there was an extra weight weighing on me. I knew that would be the last time my mom and brother came to visit before my graduation, which felt like not just a marker that my time at Trinity was ending, but also somehow like my childhood was ending — not to be dramatic.

I know that, at the end of the day, everything will work out fine. I’ll have my chances to come back to Trinity now that my little brother is almost definitely coming here. I’ll adjust to law school and find friends and activities I enjoy. But for now, I reserve the right to be a little sad and a little scared. Sometimes I think about that cheesy Dr. Seuss quote, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened,” but I have to disagree. Cry if you need to. Cry because it mattered.