5 hours

In 5 hours, I will graduate college.
In 5 hours, I will walk across a stage and receive a degree that damn near broke me to earn.
And I’m scared.
Not because I don’t think I deserve it
but because I don’t know what comes next.

Last week, I sat in my parents’ living room as questions flew at me like darts.
What are you doing after graduation?
Do you have a job lined up?
Are you going to grad school?
What’s your GPA looking like?

I broke.
In front of them.
Because they don’t get it.
Because they didn’t guide me through college.
Because the people asking me about my future are the same ones who were silent throughout my present.

I was the one who got up every day and went to class when my body ached and my spirit felt thin.
I was the one who filled out FAFSA, begged for scholarships, and took out loans I pray won’t crush me later.
I joined student orgs.
I networked.
I wrote essays on empty stomachs and got A’s on exams when I hadn’t slept in days.
I did this.

Me. Alone.
And now they want to call it our degree?

There’s a different kind of loneliness that comes with being the first.
First to walk this path.
First to carry this kind of weight.
First to turn “make us proud” into a full-time job.

Graduation is supposed to feel like a celebration.
But what happens when it feels more like a performance?

When I walk that stage, I’ll hear cheers from people who don’t know how hard it was to get here.
I’ll shake hands with a dean I’ve never met.
Smile for pictures with professors who never learned my name.
I’ll stand on a stage built for people who never expected me to make it.

And when it’s over, I’ll go home.
Maybe cry.
Maybe sit with the weight of being in school for 14 years straight, only to be pushed into the world with no real roadmap.
No blueprint.
Just questions. And pressure. And fear.

I majored in psychology because I love it.
Because I want to help people feel seen, understood, healed.
But I didn’t start here.
I came to college for English. I wanted to write.
But my parents told me there was no future in it
that words wouldn’t feed me.
That I’d starve chasing stories.
That I should choose something practical.

So I compromised.
Kind of.
And still, I wrote.

And now… here I am.
Four years later.
4,000 subscribers reading these words.
4,000 people who believe in me.
4,000 strangers who see something in my voice that my own family couldn’t.

So maybe I didn’t do it their way.
Maybe I still don’t know what comes next.
Maybe I’m scared.
But I’m not lost.

Because I know what I love.
And I know what I’ve survived.
And I know this
I didn’t get this far just to lose myself now.

In 5 hours, I will graduate.
And no matter who claps, cries, or claims credit
this degree is mine.
This journey is mine.
And the future?
I’ll find my way, even if I have to write the map myself.