Today is the day. It's been almost eighteen years in coming, and now here it is.
Tonight, I graduate high school. 
I'm waiting outside the school's football field right now, with most of the rest of my graduating class, to rehearse for graduation. I've been through so much in these past four years. Love, heartbreak, loss, rebirth, recollection, gatherings and leavings. Today is the day it all comes together, the day I leave high school and step out into the wide blue world beyond. 
Of course, it isn't perfect. I'll be leaving behind many friends of mine who went to school with me. There are things I wish hadn't happened, things that I would do better if I had a chance to do them over. And it's still painful, knowing that my grandmother, one of the most loving, nurturing and accepting people in my life, succumbed to cancer, unable to watch me make this step towards adulthood. Even now, almost a year after her death, that wound still runs deep.
But even in the face of all that, life goes on, and for better or worse, I'm graduating today. I promised so many people that I'm going to do my best from here on. Thank you all, everyone on here and in real life, who's supported me, loved me, been a friend or family to me. 
Wish me luck.