Recently I caught something pretty serious: I caught sight of the calendar.

Up until recently, I have just been going to school, doing my homework, and spending all my free time with my girlfriend or working on my car. Now, I look at the time and realize I am 17 years old, in my senior year of high school, and it’s time to get serious.

Yesterday, I was looking at college stuff and really realized for the first time what a mistake I have made waiting this long. Now in only a few months I have to figure out what I’m going to do, where I am going to go, and how I am going to pay for it. All of this while navigating overly complex college websites.

I know what I want to do, but I am not sure how to do it.

The thing that is most stressing me out is money — costs for tuition, costs for books, costs for supplies, cost for room, costs for gas, and cost for food. Everything costs money.

As soon as I go off to college, I will be on my own for the first time and have to figure out how to pay for it all. It isn’t realistic to think even for a second that I can just work my way through college. With the rising price of tuition and books and the difficulty of finding a good-paying job these days, I would probably have to work two jobs or even more just to cover tuition.

Then I have to account for time as well. Working one or two jobs, where will I find time to do homework and sleep? Even if I managed to budget enough time for work, school and sleep, there would be no free time and no breaks. It would be a long couple of years.

One thing that I have going for me right now is Running Start. Because I have attended college since last year, by the time I graduate high school I will already have two years of college out of the way. That means that to get a four- year degree from a university I only have to attend two years worth of school. This means I get to cut my tuition costs in half. That’s still a lot of money, though.

As of right now, I am getting serious. I am spending less free time doing things like watching television or working on my car and doing things like researching colleges and scholarships. I am also going to start working to hopefully save enough money to make some sort of dent in the costs.

The way that homework is picking up, and if I get a job, things are going to get tight. I don’t want to have to sacrifice anything, though. I want to still be able to see my friends and my girlfriend and watch some TV in between homework on breaks and just be able to lie down on the couch and forget about everything for a second and just relax.

I’m not sure how I’m going to do it; I just know that I’m going to figure it out. I will budget time and figure out a way to do everything I want to while still doing everything I have to.

It will be tough, but I can do anything I set my mind to.

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