I remember the excitement leading up to the day of my high school graduation. The day I felt I had been preparing my whole life for was finally just within reach. What I wasn’t prepared for was the emotions I would feel when it was all actually happening.

During the day leading up to the ceremony there was this tiny feeling deep inside me. In the morning when I woke up it was so distant that I pushed it aside as butterflies or excitement. However as the day wore on and I sat through rehearsals that tiny emotion grew and grew, and I began to see it for what it was. Fear. It wasn’t nerves about getting up on stage, it wasn’t excitement about celebrating a huge life moment, it was fear through and through. As I put on my cap and gown and took pictures with my family I…