> I'm scared to death. In 4 months, I'll be officially a senior. In 7 months, my brother will be gone forever (except for vacations). In a year, I'll know what college I'm going to go to (probably... I'll at least know which I want to go to). In a year and seven months, I'll be gone forever. I'll have to move hundreds of miles away, and make new friends, and deal with schoolwork without my parents on my back, and after that get a apartment and a job.... This is the first time that the fact that I'm growing up and everything will change has hit me. I'm not upset about getting out of High School or DC, but this is the first year I've really been happy with my life. I'm finally over the teenage "I'm ugly and fat" thing (although that won't change in college, probably).... actually, I guess it's the fact that this is the first year that I've had really good friends who believe the same stuff as me who I can talk to about anything... and the thought that I'll lose touch with many of them and have to leave them just hurts a lot.... I'm scared to death. I don't want my childhood to end. I don't want these 17 years to be all I have with my family. I don't want anything to change. How do you guys deal with it? Those of you in high school, how do you deal with knowing you have to leave? If you're in college, how'd you deal with leaving? If you're past that, what little tidbits of wisdom do you have for a teenager who is scared of the Real World?
>
> Well, at least I'll have you guys.... you'll still be here, waiting for me at my computer, right?
>
> uni"i feel like i'm writing a Dear Abby letter"peg

I've been scared to death about leaving this year, realizing that my high school career is almost halfway over. Being even younger than you, I can't help you with your fears of the real world, but I can empathize with Big Bro leaving for college.

I don't know how your family will work it. Mine rented a motorhome and we all drove to the campus, dropped him off, stayed a day to let him sleep in his dorm with the knowledge we were still there, and left unceremoniously the next morning. I was all concerned at first, because this was someone I'd grown up with. The person I had the hardest time in the world expressing my feelings to, and my chance was gone. We knew we loved each other, of course, but I never got over the fact that he was "first" and so we never, ever got along well. The first time in my life I remember hugging him was on campus, the last time I'd see him for three months and the last time we'd live together full-time. Somehow, I just accepted it, then and there. Looking back, if it was a story there would be a nice little metaphor in how we left... we walked in opposite directions, went straight to a seminar on adjusting. It was the most beautiful day you could hope for. I remember being surprised at now not-bad I felt. Somewhere, between the future and past tenses, I accepted it, just like that. We talk all the time on messenger and we've never been closer. The same thing happened to our older cousins-- at each other's throats until the older one leaves and now they're friends. You gotta have a cloud to have a silver lining.

Chris