Senior year is a weird year, I can’t think of a better way to put it. Whether it’s your senior year of high school or college, you find yourself saying goodbye to one part of your life and looking onto the next. You find yourself scared and anxious to leave what and who you know behind, while at the same time giddy with excitement for the adventures ahead of you.  

Having just started my last semester at Michigan State University, those feelings of apprehension and eagerness have left a constant swarm of butterflies in my stomach that I’m sure will be there until I find my next step. My time at MSU has been a path of discovery, of knowledge, and happiness. My heart aches at the thought of leaving the people who have become my family and the place that has become my home. Not only does it make me sad, it scares the crap out of me and honestly it’s terrifyingly uncomfortable. I don’t know where I’m going to be in 5 years, and frankly I don’t even know where I’m going to be next year. I don’t know what state I’ll be living in, I don’t know where I’ll be working, I don’t know where any of my friends will be. However, the one thing I do know is that the thought of next year and my lack of plans makes me uncomfortable. 

Until this year, that feeling of being uncomfortable sent me into a world of worry and panic. I always said I never wanted to go to graduate school, but I was so desperate for a plan that I actually looked into grad schools. Which if you think about it, is insane! I thought of doing something I never wanted to do because I was so uncomfortable with being uncomfortable. I didn’t realize that what I was doing wasn’t really what I wanted until one of my favorite professors decided to be frank with me. She told me, “You have to start getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, because this is going to happen the rest of your life.” You never know where your passions might take you, you never know if your ‘plan’ is really going to pan out the way you expect, all you can do is do what you love and your path with form. This isn’t to say that your life is going to fall into your lap; getting what you want and where you want to be will always be hard work. But if you work hard at what you love you won’t go unnoticed. 

I’m writing this not just for those seniors graduating high school, but also for myself and all of my friends who are searching for their next step. It’s time we all get comfortable with being uncomfortable because we have a whole life of unplanned experiences and exciting adventures ahead of us. So here’s to us, the Uncomfortable Seniors.