As I mentioned in my last post I will be graduating on Saturday. That will be the last time I walk through the campus that I have called my home for four years and it will still be my home. When I leave the auditorium Loyola will no longer be my home. It will be the school I used to go to, and in many ways that's sad for me. I was happy here. I met my best friends here. I learned here, and not just classroom lessons. I learned to accept defeats and mistakes gracefully. I learned that I have nothing to regret even when I thought I had made irreparable mistakes. I grew up in ways I didn't even realize I needed to grow.

The first day I moved in as a freshman, I cried because I was so homesick for my parents' home. I never realized that four years later, which felt more like four minutes, I would be crying because I had to leave this place I couldn't wait to leave that first day.

I don't know what my future holds. Perhaps I will make my way back here for law school or maybe I really will move away and leave all of this behind. I just know that I could not have had this life without knowing who I have known and doing what I have done and making those mistakes that I thought would ruin my life forever. In the grand scheme of things what really matters is that I did something I was never sure I could do. I will walk across that stage knowing I have a crowd of people cheering me on, and that my graduation is recognition not just of my academic work, but of my life work and my growing up.