The handy thing about having written these columns for two years is that if I need ideas, I can just go back and see what I’ve already done and hope for inspiration.

The other thing about having written these columns for two years is that, well, it’s been two years. Time’s just flown by, and today is a special kind of proof of that.

Because later today I’ll be graduating from high school.

Last year, I took the opportunity to write an open letter to the graduating classes. I recently reread that, trying to get a feel for exactly what I wanted to put out into the world this time around, because I just plain don’t have the time to vent everything bouncing around my head.

One thing that stuck out was that no one ever mentions a right of passage being reversible.

This column is the “Youth View” for a reason. It’s been a fantastic opportunity, and one I’m grateful for, and one I’m acutely aware only went to a high school student because that’s the voice the newspaper wanted. I’ve tried to make sure I speak from that place every time I sit down to write, tried to focus on communicating my specific perspective.

Sometimes I’ve probably succeeded. Sometimes I probably haven’t. But either way, here we are, approaching the end, and this column is just one more door that’s going to be closing for me.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad it’s closing. It should close. I’ve spent a good chunk of the past year volunteering at an elementary school and the children’s room of the library, talking to people younger than me, and having it driven home that this isn’t going to be my world forever. That it’s barely my world now. That there are always going to be people coming up with new ideas and new views and new values and they deserve to have their turn shaping the way things are done.

Today’s meant to be a happy day, a celebratory day, when a whole new generation takes our first steps into the “real world,” but the transition is jarring enough that to me it feels bittersweet. I think that no one talks about the world we’re stepping away from because they think we’re more than ready and grateful to get away.

But here’s something I will miss about the smaller world I’m leaving: it’s flexible, if not forgiving. Change is constant and expected. From the outside looking in, for just a few more hours, the adult world seems calcified. There are Ways Things Are Done. There are Things Everyone Knows.

And here’s something I am genuinely looking forward to about the adult: there’s room to move and an enormous opportunity to shake things up.

Soon enough, considering how fast it seems I’ve arrived here today, my views are no longer going to be New and Fresh and Exciting. They might just be another part—I hope they become another part—of the Way Things Are Done. So I’m glad I’ll get the chance to go out there and change the world.

But I think I’m even gladder that right behind me and the closing door, there’s someone else coming up with the youth view, ready to change the world too.

Congratulations to everyone walking the stage today, or in the recent past, or sometime soon. As of right now, and for who knows how much longer, this is our world too. Let’s go shake things up.