I knew there was something remarkable about February the instant I noticed my neighbors launching fireworks on Groundhog’s Day (yes, Phil, I’m talking to you. Damnable geriatric rodents trying to swindle us out of spring). Or a few days later when I realized, oh my god, I’ve been exposed to a virulent strain of apathy that congealed in my brain and rendered me incapable of writing, swigging my brew (which until recently was Welch’s White Grape Blueberry Kiwi), and dancing competently. And despite the tremendous amount of paperwork that I have manhandled in the past week (this is a whole other story), I’m pleasantly surprised to learn that I’m actually going to college and that when I wake up tomorrow, and have those strange daydreams that begin with pie and always end up with several thousand cats roosting in my house, I will know that there was a small moment in time — several seconds at the most — within which I imagined myself at college and actually felt the excitement of being somewhere other than high school.

Personally, I can’t wait. I could use the distance from my family, and the exposure to responsibility and independence. Like driving for instance: something that I can do in theory, but which I’ve never had the chance to experience. For the past several months, ever since I first read that damn driver’s manual (with such fascinating pieces of advice as “BEWARE OF BIG RIGS” and “This sign indicates that a national park is close by — please do not feed the bears.”), I’ve had to sit through my dad’s constant promises of teaching me himself, letting me drive around the parking lot, signing up me up to this driving school or that driving school, dropping me off to take the written test (or the computer test — even better!), and I know now to take it with a grain of salt. But hey, even if I can’t drive by the time I’m thirty, at least I’ll have that extra twelve-and-a-half years to invent a jet-pack-bicycle-with-wings. And a mini-fridge.

It’s not even really the thrill of having a car and being able to take your friends around for once, or running errands, or just being able to go somewhere by yourself whenever you want to. It’s not just passing on a bit of kindness to people who, like you, always end up stranded somewhere without a ride, or finally being able to get pissed off at gas prices. It’s just the idea that, finally, I don’t have to depend on my parents for the little things. It’s that one step towards being an adult that most people take in a timely fashion, but that I’ve sadly missed (and doesn’t it suck to be waiting for a ride as a senior, and having to watch the sophomores drive each other home?).

But that’s sort of how my dad is. He’s argumentative and conciliatory at the same time, seemingly oblivious and deeply affected, helpful and aggravating. I still haven’t forgiven him for his xenophobia, and although I know he’ll never change that, and although I know that his vote this election year will cancel out mine, all I can do is embrace that fact that my family’s made it these seventeen years of my life without shipping me out to Latvia or taking up taxidermy as a hobby to vent out frustration. And while I know I’m going to hate being given rides back and forth from school or competitions, at least I have the option of going to sleep in the passenger seat to Gnarls Barkley (although I would never go to sleep to Gnarls Barkley — hell, my eardrums are still jamming).