My first morning at boarding school, I woke up to a text from one of my best friends that said It just hit me, this is probably the biggest thing you’ve ever done. I can’t wait to see where it takes you. He was right, leaving home and becoming an “adult” at age sixteen was the biggest thing I’d done so far.

Time to set the standards higher. Today begins the next-biggest-thing I’ve ever done. In three hours, a bus will take me away from the NMH campus that has become my home, and into the first waves of an incredible adventure.

How is it ever possible to be ready for this sort of thing? You can think you’re ready, you can pack six times, make a thousand lists (you should see all the post it notes around my desk right now), say goodbye, leave your words and promises and memories, and think that you know what to expect.

If I’ve learned anything from my two years at school, it’s that often, things don’t go exactly how you pictured them. Sometimes they’re worse, sometimes things challenge you past the point you thought you could handle, and you wake up on the other side shocked and proud of what you managed to accomplish.

Sometimes, they’re better. Sometimes you lose things to find something better, you change your vision of yourself to become closer to the person you want to be, people change so that you can let them go, places change so that they can make room for new people, and you discover that, no matter what, everything has a way of working out in the end.

I am so excited, so nervous, so sad to leave the people I love, so happy to travel with my new ‘family’, so ready, and completely unprepared at the same time. So here goes nothing, here starts the newest adventure, the next chapter. I hope I’ll get a chance to update you all along the way, and I wish everyone the best of luck on whatever adventure they’re about to set off on.

E Noha Ra, goodbye to those staying,
Caroline