May signals beginnings and endings. I graduated three times (over seven years) in May and I also made big decisions twice about where my life would go next (San Diego and New York City). While college was a given, I chose grad school. I chose the responsibility, the move and the debt too. But with both college and grad school I remember having the same feelings. I was nervous, maybe a little scared and excited. These feelings signaled the beginning of something new that ended up putting me in places where I learned more about myself than anywhere I had already been.

With high school grads making decisions about their first step after high school, the question “why go away to school?” has come up a few times. I could tell them about the times I laughed, cried, and did things my mom will never understand, but I’m not. They’ll experience it themselves, in their own way and I’ll keep my answer short: You’ll never know until you try. I tried and look where it got me: Just a coconut girl in a high fashioned world.

I’m back under the coconuts but who says that’s the only place I can be. Time to feel nervous, maybe a little scared and excited again.