School starts next Monday. It’s what? Technically my third senior year. But this actually is it now. Third and last. Unless I blow it. Which I won’t, because it matters so much to me. I only have 7 more classes. (Though I’ll probably take 8.) Granted, they’re all upper level major classes. But regardless, I see the end, and it’s strange. Considering I only started Winter 2016, it really hasn’t been that long. But so much has happened, so much has changed.
I see these memories on facebook, from 7, 9, 11 years ago. And it feels like a whole other life. It is a whole other life, in a way. It’s not a complaint, or even remotely sad. For someone who was so scared of change, so opposed to it, it’s a surprisingly content place, even with its continued transitory state. And the fact that I know life will change even more, be a completely different landscape (literally) in a year from now? It’s not as terrifying as I thought it would be. It’s exhilarating, almost freeing, even though I know it will be scary when I’m looking at a moving truck and a new zipcode, not to mention a new career.
But while I know it’ll be scary, I also know I can do it. And that I will do it. I feel like that’s the biggest change, and also the one I’m most proud. I really was scared to live. And maybe it is a bit hokey with the whole “courage is not the absence of fear” and blah blah blah, but it’s kind of true.
Returning to school was terrifying, especially considering I only had very broad experience in what I wanted to major. (And being classified as a non-traditional student and knowing I’d be older was, eeeps!) But it turns out I was good at it, and more importantly, I enjoyed it. And working to the point of exhaustion had a thrill and greater reward when I saw those 4.0 GPAs, despite the times I tripped, or fell back into a “I can’t do this!” Never before had I been so proud of myself. It was all me. I did that. I was doing that. I am doing that!
And it’s more than just saying yes to red lipstick and colored hair (it’s lavender now, by the way). It’s even more than my book of the list of things I want to try and do, and get a sense of achievement when I cross something off.
I sit here in a town I never considered visiting (no offense, Dayton), to spend time for a relationship I never imagined would happen, enrolled in a major whose basic principles of finance used to send me running the other way, and ready to move from a place I never thought I’d leave.
It’s ironic to me that heartbreak was the catalyst. For something that I was so fearful and convinced it would break me, it didn’t. It was low. And it was hard. It was so freaking hard. And there were so many nights where I just couldn’t. But it healed me from something I didn’t know was wrong. It is true, I said no a lot, and I said no out of fear. Maybe it was because I perceived myself to be comfortable. Maybe it was just because I was truly scared of everything. But I suppose trying to figure out why is useless, but rather, it’s more important to know that it was, and that I never want it to be again.
No more getting to that ledge, peering over, and just saying nope and walking away. Instead, balls out! Running leap into a cannonball. Sure, I may get hurt and oh yeah, it’s going to be scary. But oh, the splash it’ll make.
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