Well, it’s been about a week of giving effort. Let me tell you, this whole give effort stuff is really hard. I mean, the good thing is that I get stuff done…sometimes. A lot of the time it ends up with me thinking to myself “Man, I really need to do this.” I think that for a couple hours until I’m about to go to bed.

Then, just as I’m about to slip under the covers the guilt weighs down on me, and I get up to do what I needed to do. It’s simply too heavy on my conscience to leave things unfinished. Especially after I promised all of you that I would actually work on my work. I promise, I am. Slowly, but surely.

Mostly though, I kind of just sit around and think about next year. I used to be so excited for it all to end, to leave the island and explore foreign lands and see what else is really out there. I used to be fearless about the prospect of going away for school. Now though, I think about it, and I nearly have a heart attack.

My younger siblings have been telling me that they don’t know what they’re going to do without me, and they’re right. I have no idea how they will survive without their dashing, charming, extremely smart, and good-looking older sister. While all of that is true, the truth is, I don’t know how I’m going to survive without them!

I’ve never really had to be alone. The kind of alone where there’s no one who I couldn’t take with me to drive on an errand, no one to sit next to during awkward parties and lunches, I’ve always had a brother or sister around me to laugh off the nervousness of being somewhere new and someone to lean on when things got tense.

I used to think to myself, I’ve got this, I’m fine, I’m super independent and I can survive on my own.

Oh no, no no no no. I am nervous. Who is going to get my stupid jokes? Who’s going to take my gross vegetables in exchange for yummy fruit? Who’s going to be around, no matter what, forever and ever, to infinity and beyond?

Oh sure, some of you say friends will be there, and that’s what roommates are for, but those are all people who can leave, and they don’t have 15 years of familiarity behind them. My siblings are like my best friends. They never leave through thick and thin, through crazy and sane. They get my stupid jokes, listen to me complain and deal with it, know when I’m kidding about being angry and when I’m actually really angry. They know me inside and out and have always been at every monumental moment in my life. I can’t believe it, but I’m having separation anxiety or something over this because I’m nervous that for the first time they’re going to be thousands of miles away, and I’m really going to miss all of them, more than I thought was possible.

I used to think that leaving and saying goodbye was going to be a breeze, but now that the fact that they are actually going to be far away is hitting me right in the face. I’m a little scared. Hopefully, everything will be okay.