After graduating from high school in 2006, I will filled with a lot of emotions. I spent four years in college, graduated at the beginning of May, and am now filled with a different set of emotions. Graduation, for me, was not filled with last memories with friends or late-night celebrating in bars. I took a few photos with my family and my fiancé's family and went home to have a small party with them. I haven't seen or heard from my friends since I graduated.

I know that a lot of people say that your college friends remain some of your closest companions for life. It's different than graduating from high school because you became an adult with them. You tried your first beer with them and got busted for it with them. You decided when to skip class and when not to with them (you have to have someone to spend time with when you're not in class, after all). All of your choices revolve around academics and just having fun.

What I came to realize going into my last year of college is that my friends were all about fun for the most part, and I chose my friends over my school work many times. This hurt me hard twice, and I most definitely suffered for it. The only thing I have to show for those relationships now is a second-thought photo of us from before our last concert together, no images of us in cap and gown on the day of graduation, and no final memories worth remembering.

Well, I do have a few memories. I have a memory of putting on a senior voice recital in which my "friends" didn't show up but decided to go to the spring concert instead. The only reason I know where they were is because I saw all three of them walking away from it together as I drove home after my recital. My matron of honor threw me a bridal shower the Saturday before graduation with a dress try-on/fitting before for the bridesmaids. Only my sisters, my matron of honor, and my mother showed up. The one person I counted on to be there was so wasted from the night before that she couldn't answer my phone or my younger sister's when they came to pick her up the next morning. She didn't even show up to my bridal shower either.

It hurts me a great deal to feel this now, after my graduation, especially after I had thought I was done being hurt by it during graduation. I can't trust my friends to respect me enough to not get so drunk that they cannot show up to an obligation they said they were going to be at, to call me and ask how I am and what I'm doing or invite me out for drinks instead of only contacting me when they realize that I have something of theirs that they want back, to talk about my engagement behind my back instead of being happy for me, complaining about how the date for my wedding is two days before another wedding they are planning on being invited to...

I can forgive my friends for the decisions they have made that have hurt me, but I cannot forgive myself for letting them treat me like this.

I love my friends, but really?

No one, I think, goes through life not being pushed to achieve something. The achievement could be as minimal as remembering to turn off the light when leaving a room or knowing when to use a certain word the right way. As we grow older, the achievements grow and become life skills we need to survive. It starts with elementary homework assignments. Then, we start to get our first jobs, first dates, first cars, first bills... Then, we're expected to pay bills and earn salaries. It's all a part of life. Achievement is a part of life. However, the hardest achievement in my life has simply been living.

Since I can remember, I have always been pushed to get a higher grade in school. An A isn't good enough. As I got older, my grades started dropping because I realized that school wasn't everything. Sure, it will help further my financial future (which is very important), but making the grade doesn't make your life worthwhile. People and good work makes life worthwhile. One grade in a class that I took in high school will not affect the quality of my life.

It's been a hard few years for the United States simply because there are fewer jobs available, and of those few jobs, the qualifications are monumental. You can't just earn a decent living on a high school diploma anymore. Everyone needs to go to college and earn a degree. In high school, they tell us that we'll be better off later in life by going to college, earning a degree, and landing a nice job for more pay than people who don't go on to college. However, they neglect to mention that the jobs we're looking for going into college aren't the jobs that will be available when we finish. The hot trades in the U.S. change more often than a college student's major. By the time we get done, we may be looking forever for a job in our field of study and end up working in something completely unrelated. This is the reason for the double-major. Where studying two different areas in college may have been a stretch in early years, students now can often finish requirements for two or three majors in unrelated areas because they have varying interests and need back-up plans.

On top of the studying, students have to have jobs. It's not enough to have mom and dad pay your tuition every month. Students need rent, gas, groceries, and textbooks. There are also the occasional medical expenses during illness or field trips/study abroad experiences. Mom and Dad can't cover everything, and neither can having five loans. The problem with this equation is time. There is simply not enough for any full-time to study and take care of themselves while they also have to have a part-time job.

There is only one year, freshman year, that I didn't work in college. After that first year, I realized that although scholarships and loans and parents cover most of the expenses, there are certain expenses that arise that make one consider how important having a job really is. I first came upon this realization when my sophomore year began. My sister was a freshman and was receiving no scholarships or loans. My parents had to pay her tuition from pocket, as well as all of her other expenses. I felt the need to help out because my parents can't be expected to pay both of our ways through college entirely. Since then, I've had various jobs trying to make ends meet. At the start of my junior year, I moved into a house with three friends. I could pay my rent for the most part. However, after a few months, I just couldn't make enough. My parents started footing the bill on top of my sister's expenses.

A year later, I'm pretty financially independent aside from tuition bills and occasionally help with gas and groceries. However, I've started the second semester of my last year in college, and I will only be given 5h30min per week at my current job. Where I was pretty financially stable for six months, I am now going to be terribly behind in all of my bills. Naturally, I figured the numbers and call my parents. The first response was why I hadn't asked for money when I was home over Christmas. The second response was that when they had paid my rent, I had terrible grades. The moral of this story? Good grades = rent paid.

Of my miscellaneous and unnecessary spending since freshman year, I would say that I started college spending a ton of extra money for no reason. Now, I can't do anything outside of normal living because I already don't have enough to get by. I got older and more serious. My grades have gotten a lot better. I'm more focused, but my one mistake, one semester, haunts me every day.

This brings me back to achievement. If I'm meant to achieve something in my life, what is it? Is the real achievement getting good grades and graduating? Is being able to pay the bills an achievement? Or is the real achievement I should strive for simply being and living?

When I was young, being happy had everything to do with I had. I had to have that certain Barbie doll or that pair of jeans. I had to be as thin as those girls and be popular with those boys. I had to be in a relationship with that guy or be on good terms with that girl. Happiness was about as materialistic as it could ever get. Now that I've passed those years of my life, I have come to an age where my happiness still means what I want, even if it isn't materialistic. For the past 10 months, my life has been about one person. It's scary for me to think that after my previous relationship, I could be here again so soon and so quickly. In many ways, I have surpassed every benchmark in my life without blinking and realizing where all the time has gone. I can't remember any huge arguments. I can't remember feeling like we were never able to compromise. We always have this ability to work things out and talk things through. Yet, I find myself still wanting something... Happiness.

Don't get me wrong. I am happy. I am so well beyond grateful that he is in my life, but I wonder what these months have meant to me when I constantly find myself going back and remembering and lingering on memories that shouldn't make me think this hard. I should just be happy. It should be enough to just be happy. I can't think of many things wrong with him. In fact, many times I think his only fault is not having the same wealth of experience with women like I do with men. We once struggled with the idea of me having experienced so much and him wanting to be with someone who could experience everything for the first time with him. It's everything down to first kiss. I wish I could have given him that, all of my experiences.

Now, I'm sitting here in my apartment struggling with the idea of happiness when he's sitting in his apartment with friends being happy together. If I'm happy now, what is this feeling that I'm not doing inside of me?

Typically, I either stay out much later or come home a lot earlier. Today was a special exception because it marked the last of my first two days of school. All of the introductions are done. Monday, we will start putting our noses to the grindstone again. Oh, how I will love Behavioral Neuroscience... NOT!!

At around 3 AM, I woke up to a domestic dispute. When I first started waking up and becoming conscious, I thought it was a kid and some other kid messing around outside. Then, I decided it was a parent and their child or someone else's child. After the person screaming started to sound like a woman, I look out my window. Then, I decided to slip my glasses on. It was a woman and a man. I have a feeling that both were drunk or at least one of them. The guy said that she had hit him. I suppose they live together, as well. She stayed on the sidewalk and cried loudly until I called the police. Now, I'm not sure where she is or where he is. He is probably inside somewhere. She is probably walking around outside somewhere. I heard tons of screaming and yelling and crying and running.

I sat down today in front of my computer after work. I spent time on Facebook, cehcked my email accounts, did some homework, ate dinner, and played Guild Wars. After that, I received a call from Asha asking how I was and what I was up to. It was completely unexpected, but nice considering my recent heartaching. The plans we made are something I am definitely looking forward to (especially to avoid being in this apartment by myself all of the time). I called my father and talked about how I was feeling (which at the time was pretty rotten and lonely). Being alone and feeling alone are two different things entirely...

I have never been on the dropping off and leaving side of airports. I have always been on the "see you later" and the "I'll be home soon" side of things. I guess I never realized how hard it is to take someone you love to the airport when you know you won't be seeing them in a week after vacation is over. I won't be seeing him for the next 3 and 1/2 months... It's so hard to think of him being gone for so long. I suppose that when he's here it just feels like he's always been here. I just melt in him every time I see him and hold him. 

It sucks having to wait 3 and 1/2 months to see him again when I should be able to see him right now, but I can't be picky. I suppose I'll have the rest of my life to make sure he never leaves for this long again.

I am an openly stubborn individual, even though I try my hardest not to be. I want things, and I want them now. I'm usually not a complainer or a whiner, but why, when I want something this badly, do I actually have to wait? It isn't so much the thing itself, it's the knowing that I want it so badly. If it were any other thing in the world, I could probably just forget it and get over it, but he's totally different. He's everything. If I would have known eight months ago that I would feel like this, I don't know if I would have believed it or if it would just make me too nervous and excited to stand even trying to get this far.

I never thought that I would be denied an educational loan for school until this past May when I needed money to study abroad in France. Little did I know, I would find out rather quickly after the loan application went through. A few missed payments on my credit card set me on a path to a low credit rating and a few thousand dollars less of what I need to pay for the first semester. I have no idea what I'm going to do. Not only that, I'm playing the catch-up game at work: working as much as I can to assure myself rent money and food for the school year. I can't catch up that much though... After seeing the new work schedule, I realized that the five hours or so they want to schedule me a week will put me in even more debt (and more trouble) than I could ever imagine. So... I am searching for a job as best I can to ensure that I can pay for things without having to break the bank or call Mom and Dad every month for the rest of what I owe. Times are tough (and only getting tougher).

In this day and age, especially in the United States, one would think that we'd have it all figured out. One would assume that we'd have 100% literacy and be graduating star students left and right. You'd think there would be enough jobs and enough money to go around. Sometimes, I wish there was more we could do to help each other instead of just looking after ourselves. I wish that I didn't have to worry about credit ratings and paying the rent or earning enough money to live, let alone survive. What is the American Dream now that we're approaching 2010? What are our goals as Americans? As people?

I realized this morning how easy it is to forget something versus being able to let it go. Some things you hold inside of you just can't be let go so easily, so we choose to just let them rest where they are and forget they exist. The hard part is having someone come along and stir up all those emotions and make you confront them...

This morning, I realized for the first time how much I still hadn't let go of concerning my ex-boyfriend. All of the memories and baggage are so much a part of me that I forget they exist. I forget how visible they are to the rest of the world, even when I don't want to let anyone see them. I didn't realiwe how much a note can hurt someone else. I never thought that it would bother anyone but me. Until this morning, I guess I never really was given an ultimatum, presented with a choice between the old and the new. Most of the time, I choose the new... but I guard the old deep inside of me, only letting it peek outside every now and again. I guess no one ever really meant as much to me before...

Right now : I'm surprised at how happy I am. I'm surprised at how free I feel. I thought it would be harder than it was to look back and systematically take apart my past. I thought I'd really let go before but now... I know better now. I know better because he still exists inside me every day. Not anymore, though... I can't let it happen anymore. It hurts to think that the newest person in my life hurts because part of me exists for someone else. I can't have it anymore because he's important. He's it. He's strength enough to help me let go and see that what's in front of me is what's real and what I need. He's love. He's everything.

Despite disagreements and infrequent anger, I can't be angry at him. I can't be sad around him. He just breathes life into me, and I'm so thankful.

It is for this that I'm letting go once and for all. It's for this that I'm not going to forget but just let go.