My life for 13 years comes to its end.

I left school officially yesterday. Well, I still have to return for exams and the dreaded results day. It was strange; I expected to feel sadder, more nostalgic but instead I went through the day as if it were normal (apart from the convict outfits, the horse in the headteacher's parking space, and water fight on the field).

The day was fun and exciting. We all signed each other's yearbooks with messages we'll  read years later half remembering the faces who wrote them. I didn't feel remorse or anguish. I will miss people, but I will also watch their lives unfurl on social media. We won't be so detached from each other as previous generations may have been, perhaps that's why. Perhaps because my sister will still attend the school I don't feel totally distanced from it. Although I suspect next week when I realise I won't ever have any lessons with classmates and a formal teacher we call Miss or Sir I will feel a little sad. My life for 13 years comes to its end.

The people you meet at school are a unique and strange bunch. We are banded together mostly randomly and fight and laugh and cry all the way to the end. All the while dreaming of that weakly envisioned future where we get to escape. I don't know what all of their futures will be, or what they have been dreaming of. It'll be interesting to watch everyone find their way.

I'm excited about all the reading I can do when exams are over. All the parties, and travelling, and writing and thinking (I'll have space to think). All the freedom I'll have. But what an earth do I do with that freedom? What if I forget to do what I told myself to do in the build up to this moment?

I'm slightly scared for the future more than anything. School is a safeguard. For me it has become a form or procrastination. I don't have to face the rest of my life when I'm working hard for exams. But the rest of my life is at the edge of my finger tips now; no waiting and daydreaming about who I will be when I grow up. I am going to be that grown up very soon. I'm not sure what to do with myself. I think I lost my plan along the way. It feels too real.

I don't know what it feels like to abandon 13 years of routine but I'll soon find out. I expect I will feel both liberated and lost. The world is big out there, I haven't really been in it yet.