Two days ago I sent in my first, and only, college application. I've furiously been shooting out scholarship applications since September, but actually putting that manilla envelope in the mailbox brings a sense of finality, of reality, to the fact that, in about nine months, I will be living "on my own," sixteen-hundred miles away from home.

I guess I'm a normal high schooler: I want to leave, but I'm also hesitant. Sure the freedom to really make decisions will be amazing, but decisions can have consequences if you make the wrong one. Besides that, once college is over, I actually have to support myself, pay taxes, buy groceries, pay for the water and soap for my laundry. {gulp} I've been doing my own laundry since I was 14 years old, I was a nanny when I was 15, and I have a part-time job as a waitress now, but I have a mom to go home to at the end of the day, a woman who pays for my heating and food and the roof over my head. It's scary to think that one day I'll have to provide my own roof. Again, {gulp}!

My mom got married when she was nineteen. I'm eighteen. She had her first child, my sister, when she was twenty-one. She had a husband pretty much right off the bat; there was a very small time frame when she was out of someone else's care. My parents are divorced now, and since I was fifteen, I've adamantly said that I would never get married, and never have children. I still believe that, but for perhaps less knee-jerk-reaction reasons. I truly will be alone, eventually. And standing at the edge, looking over the precipice at the precarious of my life, of how it will be, is daunting.

But hey, one step at a time, right? I sent in my application two days ago. I figure that's a good start.