As I write this, I am preparing to go to senior prom.

The final dance, one of the only times in my life I will likely wear a tuxedo. It snuck up on me so fast I cannot believe it.

I graduate in June with an associate’s degree through Running Start. I am going to attend Whitworth University in Spokane and will have to move.

Two years away from home. Yes, I will be able to visit, but that’s two years I am missing. I will be a ghost in the lives of my entire family. When I come home, my sister will be 12 and my brother 17.

Moving out had been a far-from-now reality. As I write this, that’s all changing. My mother and I are going to Spokane to visit the campus. It’s a completely surreal experience for me, the finalization of becoming an adult, the real test of the pros and cons of being a grown-up.

I will be living on my own for the first time in my life. I am actually going to be living with my aunt, but it’s the same idea — being away from my parents and out of their house, the place where I have grown up and felt safe. Now it is time to push the boundaries.

As soon as I move, I am going to need to find a job. I am leaving early for that purpose. I will have to start payments on student loans within only 60 days of starting school. I have two months to secure a job and a source of income or, well, I am not even sure what exactly will happen. I will just have to keep my fingers crossed that I may win the Doodle for Google scholarship.

Class registration started May 1, requiring me to decide what to major in and what my career will be. It’s just a little bit nerve-racking, but I am sure we all have had to go through that, right? Well, most of us anyway; some of the lucky ones knew right off the bat what they would be going into as an adult. In second grade, while other kids were talking about being a mechanic or a firefighter, I was still talking about being Jedi Abraham Lincoln when I grew up, so clearly I was behind from the get go!

I am lucky, however, to have parents supportive enough that told me I can do anything I want and they will support me. If I want to be a business major and go on to be the CEO of a company making millions of dollars annually, that’s fine with them. If I want to be an author who can barely afford rent, that is ok with them as well. The only thing they want is for me to be happy — and, of course, money would not hurt.

It is just weird that until now this was so unreal — and really, in many ways, it  still is. But I am on the road to Spokane to make this all real and present. No longer will I be able to think of moving and going away and student loans as something far off down the road. I will no longer be able to think of leaving in terms of years, and months, but in weeks and even days.

— Kyler Lacey is a senior at Kingston High School and a Running Start student. Contact him at kylerlacey@gmail.com