Too often, I find myself wondering "Why?" Why aren't my grades exceptional? Why don't I have more on-campus involvement? Why do I always mess up at my job? Why is my love life on a 6 year epic spiral downward?
Why am I even here?
I want to be clear that the question, "Why am I here?" doesn't always have to be something to fear - but can often be something to embrace.
It's healthy - to certain extents - to wonder about and explore your life's purpose. If you didn't, your life would be overcome with complacency and could cause you to just be stationary. You would become content with where you were and never desire something bigger, greater, and better suited for the life that you deserve.
I grew up in a relatively small town in North Alabama. I went to school with the same people from the time that I was 4 years old all the way up until I graduated high school. I did ballet, band, and danceline with (generally) the same girls my entire life. I played sports with the same squad. I was comfortable.
I dated a boy for 2 years in high school. And when we broke up, I remember feeling like my world was ending first. But more than that, I realized how sick I was of always resorting to the same thing - the same music to cry to, the same people to turn to, the same places to escape to, the same parking spot in the mornings, etc... Naturally, I thought this was "well I went through a breakup so I should dye my hair, lose drastic amounts of weight, and go wild" (which I did, minus the go wild part). But once I had started healing, the lingering feeling of not just wanting change but longing for it did not go away.
In the weeks leading up to graduation, everyone around me was extremely nostalgic and there were lots of tears. Everything was the "last thing of it's kind that we'll experience together."
I mean I was sad and a little fearful. My life was about to change in a pretty huge way. But I was sad in a different way. I was frustrated. I was trapped in a small town that of course I loved, but I was ready to break that border and see everything else that was out there. I counted down the days until I walked across the stage, had the best summer of my life, and then moved to college. Granted, my chosen college was only an hour away, but very few people that I knew selected the same college. And it was a new place, a new routine, new friends, and a new home.
Now, while I wish that I could say that my transition from home to college was easy, I would be lying. I was so homesick for about 2 weeks. I texted every friend I ever had in my hometown trying relentlessly to hold on to something familiar and something comfortable. I remember one night sobbing to my freshman roommate - who I'd known my whole life, thankfully - and then laughing through my tears about how ridiculous I'd been to wish that time away. How much I wanted to be out of there, and now how hard I was clinging to what little of it I had left.
Nostalgia is such a strange feeling. It evokes emotions that aren't quite sad but aren't exactly happy either. It's this feeling of longing and desperately wanting those times back. And I have never known how to put it into words, but as of recent, I have discovered that nostalgia can be a beautiful reminiscing of the past, or it can be a detriment to your mental and emotional wellness. Not because it's bad to look back, but because it can turn into wishing that was how things were now. It can take you away from the present. And what a disappointing way to live; to constantly try and live in a time that has long passed, and that you can't bring back. It's a time-sucking trap.
One day, I woke up about 3 hours before my 9:30 am class. I went walking around campus - around mid-fall semester - and I looked at this college that I had begged my parents to go to. I had BEGGED and pleaded that if I got a certain amount of scholarship, we'd pray our way through the rest. What didn't looked like a distant fantasy at one point had become my life, and a dream-come-true to me. I stopped at the top of the hill (my whole campus is a hill) and looked at everything and thought,
I love this place. I love where I am. And I have wasted close to a month retreating to my dorm room and crying out of fear and I am not growing. I am not the person that I want to be, but I know that it's here that I'll find who that is.
Once I decided to make that infamous leap, I dove head first into every organization and club I could try out/audition/interview to be in. And some of them crashed and burned, but even when they did, the momentary hurt I felt was nothing compared to that pure joy of progress. Because I was moving. I was changing. I was doing something different. I was embracing what I had kept at arms length for so long.
I say this now, but at the time, I just felt maladjusted. I just couldn't find my niche or my place on this campus. But by spring semester, I'd found my people. I'd found my place. I'd found happiness. I did everything I could to stick to that. I wanted everything to stay just the way that it was because I felt good for the first time since I'd moved here.
But first semester of my junior year, the cycle started again. I grew so tired of the routine. I changed jobs, started going out more during the day to explore the city I lived in and took new routes to do it. I hung out with different people and tried new music, movies, cities, and places. Now I'm in my second semester, and more has changed than I could ever imagine. My friendships have suffered and some have blossomed. I have had romantic relationships start and then stop just as quickly. I have spent innumerable hours crying a week because I can't grasp statistics concepts or sometimes just because I feel lonely.
But I look back on the last 3 years, and can't help but laugh. I scoffed when people told me that I'd be a different person at 21 than I was when I started college at 18 (because 18-year-olds are adults and have it all together by then, duh). And now I remember freshman me and thank God that relationships I wanted then didn't work because I am a different being and I like different things and types of people. All the bad grades that at the time seemed to put a big F on my future have only shown me my strengths and weaknesses and made it easier for me to find a path for me to take in this life. All those nights that I cried because I was overwhelmed from stress lead to the best naps I've ever taken the next day after a big exam or finishing homework. But more than any of that, I got through it. And I'm here and I'm doing alright.
That's not to say that I haven't been broken, and that's really the whole point of me writing this article. I hear a lot of people say, "you were never broken, or you wouldn't be here." That's not true. I've been broken to a debilitating level. We all have at some point. And that's okay. It's what makes life worth living.
And it is okay to not rush through those feelings.
The only thing worse than feeling broken is people trying to shove you through to the end. Of course, there is a light at the end of this tunnel, and there always will be. Of course, there is a greater plan for your life than what is hurting you at this moment. And of course, things will eventually work out and be restored. But right now, you don't see that and you need to know that it's okay.
The most transformative and healing times in my life are when I stop trying to distract myself from the hurt that I feel, but really give myself time to process and "feel through it," as I like to call it. Self-discovery is immanent in times of pain. You will learn more about your strength, your will-power, and all that your mind and body can endure if you give yourself the time to explore it.
Of course, being happy with where you is a wonderful thing, but I've found recently that the sort of "happiness" that applies here should be a temporary resting place as you regroup and prepare for the remainder of your journey.
See, I've always kind of blown off the saying, "Happiness is a journey, not a destination" until I started to experience first-hand exactly what it meant. And let me try and break down, at least a little bit, of why I think we should use the term "happiness" extremely loosely when talking about what we are searching for in life:
Happiness is a fleeting emotion; just as sadness, anger, jealousy, excitement, etc... If you search for these feelings as a way to live or as an emotional occupation, you will be searching until the day that you die. And not only will you be searching, you will be constantly disappointed when you reach a point of happiness and then it escapes you. Hence, my cyclic feelings of peaking at comfort and happiness, getting bored, and being brought back down, over and over again.
I really want to be more intentional about encouraging people in my life not to search for happiness, but to search for joy; a deep-rooted, soul-level, lasting-even-in-the-bad-times, joy. You should want the type of joy that gives you hope even in the darkest moments of your life and the type of joy that not even the strongest of forces can take from you.
If it takes a 3-hour drive with your favorite music, spend the $20 on gas, make a playlist, and do it. If it takes a night out with your friends, then forget school and work for a few hours and do it. If it takes a night laying on your bed crying until you can't anymore, do that. Stop fearing getting in your own head - because sometimes it's a necessity to propel you toward the better - but just remember not to stay there.
I look back on all of those times where I thought the hurting was never going to end. My heart breaks thinking about how low I let myself get. But I would not trade those drives, nights alone, morning runs or escapes to my favorite coffee shops to write down everything I was feeling for anything. Because I have learned more looking back on those times and really breaking them down than I ever have the times when I was trying to distract or numb myself from them.
What I have learned this far (which isn't much) but I will share with you, is to love people. Let people love you back. Be brave. Give yourself credit. School and work do not define you. Everything gets better. Times will change and that's okay. People will change and that's okay too. Take all of it in, the good and the bad, because all of it means something to you and plays a big part in your story.