Whether it's a year after that hard breakup or a year after you graduated high school, the past has so much to do with who you've become today. So much has happened in the 365 days since that life-changing event pushed you into the next phase of your life, so now you have to take the chance to look back at what it has taken to get you to where you are. You have to praise the good, accept the bad and make peace with the stuff that hasn't been settled. This is the story of the year between high school graduation and the end of your first year in college.
Rewind. A year ago I woke up the same as when I went to bed. A year ago I didn't know the amount of change that would ensue in the next year. I got up, got ready for my day and my life began to change. It was the last stretch between my high school graduation and the next part of my life. No matter what happened, good, bad or unexplainable things began to change.
For the longest time, I hated change. I didn't want anything to change because it usually meant something bad was happening. Like when Nickelodeon stopped running Drake and Josh (lowkey plead to bring it back). However, as I've grown I've come to love change. I love the idea of opportunity and I love the idea that change creates possibility.
Rewind. Eight months ago I was four months into a gradually changing life. I'd accepted the past and was at the front doors of my new life. I had driven the twelve hours from a place that was my home to a place that would become my home. I was starting college and like most people I was nervously excited. I wanted to make friends, I wanted to make memories and I was totally and completely out of my element. I was an out-of-state student in a state with this strange thing called humidity and an abundance of fried foods.
What's great about trying to predict the future is the predictability of its unpredictability. Like the fact that I can say with confidence that my March Madness bracket will always fail me. As much as I wanted to know what would happen in the next eight months of my life, I had no way of knowing what was coming. You can't confuse your expectations with your predictions, and if you aren't careful you're going to let yourself down.
Rewind. Five months ago everything had become routine (in the most un-routine fashion). I had for the most part figured out the college system and was already laughing at the mistakes I made only a few months before. At this point, I had been to a few college parties, all of the home football games and discovered the best places to eat in town. I built amazing relationships with people I wouldn't have expected while still maintaining friendships from back home. I struggled with the balance between my old high school identity and my newly forming college identity. To say the least, I wasn't the same person I was seven months earlier and I began to think that was okay.
For some reason in our minds we divide things into pros and cons. We play a game of give or take to decide what our next step is. Usually, I do this with clothes. Pros to wearing leggings and sweat shirt are ultimate comfort and easy napping capabilities. Cons are the lazy college student look and overly tempting napping capabilities. Sometimes, though, you have to focus on what would make you happy in the end. (Wearing leggings and a sweatshirt)
Rewind. Two months ago I realized how far I've come and how far I have to go. I was looking forward to the new life of spring, for sunlight and blossoming trees do strange things to people (aside from giving them allergies). I was planning a spring break adventure like I hadn't done before, with new friends and new places, all the while praying that my midterm grades would carry me through the end of the year. I also realized that I didn't leave home behind; instead, it became a part of me it and it made me, me. I realized that without leaving I wouldn't have become the person I am or found the people I did.
Not to be cheesy, but every day that you wake up breathing is a gift. Every time you get the chance to predict the unpredictable or weigh your options you are lucky. Even if you don't know what is going to happen in the next 365 days you can say within reasonable doubt that you survived the last 365 days and the odds are looking pretty good.
Pause. Today is the 365th day of this 365-day transformation. It was just an average day. I went to class, saw my friends, panicked about the littlest things and stress ate chocolate. But then I stopped and looked back at the past twelve months and saw how all of my nerves and doubt were irrelevant. I decided to focus on what is right in front of me and stop standing in my own way, each day we have to make this decision. You develop as you learn, as you adapt and when you aren't even realizing it. Today I woke up, I got ready for my day and was excited for the next 365 days.
