On May 31, I will leave Boston — the city that I have loved forever. The city that has given me my funny group of funny friends and my rat companions and the only city I have ever really known. You can imagine how scary it might be to leave a place that you’ve lived in forever. So, for now, that is why I am pleading “no more strangers.” I just can’t take them anymore. I just want people that I know. I just want to be with my dad, walking through the yard on the Cape to the Front House for dinner.

The enrollment deposit to Boston University may have been a couple of hundred dollars, but the thrilling idea of going to school 1,000 miles away from home was priceless. An uneasy knot formed in my stomach almost as soon as I threw my cap in the air at my high school graduation and realized the reality of my college choice. Was I ready to move away from home? Could I handle being in an unknown city without family nearby? Am I strong enough to get through the hard times by myself?