One More Stone Down

Moments ago I finished my first year of college. At approximately 11:05 I turned in my responses to my Pol S final essay questions. It's still hard to believe that I'm done. I'm not leaving Pullman until tomorrow, so perhaps the reality will set it a bit by then. I always expect there to be some kind of feeling. I expected a feeling after graduation, after the end of my first semester, and I expected a feeling after finishing the last final of my first year of college. All these events were stepping stones in my life, but no feeling came. I feel absolutely no different than I did the hour before I began the final. I don't feel any different than when I first began classes here, though I do know my way around campus better and am writing this on a computer in the newsroom and not in my dorm room as is now often the case. But still, where is that feeling, the feeling of vindication, of having survived, of growing older. Perhaps college has changed me and I just don't know it, I certainly don't feel it. I wonder why I expect a feeling in the first place. Maybe I should stop, or maybe, the feeling will come when I graduate college, or when I get a real job, or when I move out. There's nothing to do until it comes though, except to keep stepping along. So I step.