“You know what I felt this morning, Delia? Nothing. No passion, no spark, no faith, no heat, no nothing! I think I’ve really gotten past the point where I can be calling this a ‘bad moment’… This is worse than death to me, the idea that this is the person I’m going to be from now on… There’s like nothing – I have no pulse! I used to have this appetite for food, for my life, and it is just gone! I want to go someplace where I can marvel at something, anything.”
A year ago I was sitting in my basement praying for my life to change. I wanted to marvel at something, to actually be alive and experience my life. I felt exhausted with the idea of my life.
I was watching a movie about a woman who goes to Italy in order to find herself. I'm a sucker for movies like that, where the main character goes on a journey and ends up finding out things about herself she had been searching for.
I decided to create my own Italy. I needed something risky and exciting and new.
I decided to enroll in public high school.
"I'm not checking out, I need to change"
As the weeks leading up to my dramatic re-entry into high school passed, I began to see this more as a bad decision and less of the something new I had been hoping for. All the unknowns seemed to be looming over my head. The what if's became big and daunting.
I entered my first day of classes fearful of this big new world I had been thrown into. I felt like a fish out of water.
So many times in that first month I remember crying because I was completely overwhelmed. I remember sitting and forcing myself to find the good things that happened in each day because otherwise I would be overcome with this sense of dread.
In September I remember thinking I would never make it until June.
And then something began to change...
It is now May and in a few days I will be graduating. I will be leaving this world and entering a new one. And the day that once seemed unconceivable is now here.
I would be lying if I said I was ready for it to come
This past year has been a challenging one. I have learned so much, about subjects like biology and history, but also about myself.
I have met so many amazing, incredible people, and made friendships that I cherish.
I have laughed a lot, cried a lot, stumbled and failed more times than I would like to admit.
But I have also succeeded in more ways than I can count.
And the thought of saying goodbye to all of this in just a few weeks terrifies me.
The place I was so hesitant to walk into now feels like home to me. The self discovery that has taken place inside of those walls amazes me. The people I have met are beautiful.
I went into this year searching for something beautiful, something marvelous, something new. I wanted my life to change.
And now, a full year after that incident in my basement, I can safely say that it has.
I have seen beauty. I have experienced love. I have learned lessons about biology and history, and what it means to be human and new experiences. I have laughed and cried and loved and been stressed out and sometimes I can only stand back and marvel at the wonder of it all.
In September I never expected the profound impact that this place would have on my life, and how it would shape me in just a few short months. I am walking out of this experience existing more than I did when I entered in.
"I will leave with the hope that the expansion of one person - the magnification of one life - is indeed an act of worth in this world. Even if that life, just this one time, happens to be nobody's but my own"
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