Yaya Corley
Staff Writer
This isn’t a goodbye, it is just a see you later. That is what I keep telling myself as this chapter of my life comes to an end. It feels strange, almost unreal, to stand at the edge of something that once felt so far away. There were days I thought I would never make it here, days when the finish line didn’t even feel real. Now I am here, trying to hold onto every feeling at once. As we wrap up our final moments of undergrad, I remind myself to never forget where I came from. Not just the place, but the version of me who started this journey. The one who was unsure, who questioned if they were capable, who carried doubt just as heavily as hope. I owe it to that version of myself to remember everything it took to get here.
I will not forget those long nights that seemed like they would never end. Nights where the silence was loud and the weight of everything I had to do sat heavy on my chest. I remember staring at notes that stopped making sense, rereading the same lines over and over, hoping something would finally click. I remember the early mornings that came too soon, when exhaustion followed me into the next day but quitting was NEVER an option. And then there were the moments when I had to let go and let God, when I reached a point where there was nothing left I could do to prepare. Those moments were the hardest because they required trust. Trust in myself, trust in everything I had already done and faith that it would somehow be enough. I learned how to sit with uncertainty, how to breathe through the fear instead of running from it.
But it was not just the struggle that shaped me. It was the quiet victories, too. The moments no one clapped for. The times I pushed through when no one was watching. The small wins that reminded me I was capable, even when I did not fully believe it yet. Those moments mattered more than I realized at the time. So now, standing here, I let myself feel everything. The pride, the relief, the disbelief and even the sadness of leaving something that changed me so deeply. I tell myself to do the things I have been afraid to do, to take the risks I once avoided, to step into the person I have been becoming all along.
I will never forget where I came from because this journey was not easy, and it was not supposed to be. Every step, every setback, every moment of doubt brought me here. And now I can finally say that I made it, not by chance, but by persistence, by faith and by refusing to give up on myself.