'All by myself'

You know that part of “Bridget Jones’s Diary” where Renee Zellweger sits on the couch and sings “All By Myself?” She’s pathetic, and besides her being a lush, we’re just alike. I feel like Bridget sometimes. I came to Milligan all by myself and am leaving alone too.

I don’t mean that I’m depressed or lonely or anything. I mean that after graduation I will be venturing off to my new job, and I will have to go alone. I will not have my mentoring group to be my friends. I will not have my advisor to hold my hand. I am going to stand among thousands of recent college graduates and make myself stand out. And I have to do it alone.

I thought I came to Milligan to be equipped, but last week my mom told me that I came to leave. “Missie, we sent you so you could graduate,” she said. “You went to college to get through it.” This is hard to hear because I am very comfortable here. Milligan is a safe place.

I have made wonderful friends. I have stayed up all night for Perkins runs and taken road trips. I’ve had a terrific time acting in plays and musicals; I was fortunate enough to be involved in the One Acts and major productions every year. I feel like I have learned much about myself through music, theatre and journalism.

I have gained the tools it takes to be “successful” in this life. Now that my time here is up, I am terrified to look to the future. They tell me I will change lives and shape culture. Why then do I just want to stay here another year?

It’s not that I don’t have opportunities waiting for me. I have been selected for a Walt Disney World internship. I have also applied to the Trinity Forum Academy. And if I wanted to, I could get a job at the Johnson City Press. I guess I could be a perpetual student. I simply do not know what to do with my life.

Do you know why high schoolers think they have the world figured out? Because they do. At the age of 18, you have everything sorted out. Your world is so small that you have had time to understand everything in it. And then you go to college and get smacked in the face with reality.

When I came in as a freshman, I knew exactly what I was going to do for the rest of my life. Now as a senior, I am baffled as to what to do for the next six months. So here is my reality check. The world is bigger than the bubble that is Milligan College. In nine days I will travel far from Tennessee and my alma mater to start a new chapter in my life. And I will do it all by myself.