As I finish this chapter in my life, I am once again met with something that I thought couldn’t come sooner; change. The change that I previously wrote about…four years ago, is the said chapter this is now coming to a close. That chapter is college. My four years at college are over. Well in five weeks they will be over. I have to admit that I have kind of neglected this blog/website or whatever you want to call it as I’ve been consumed by stupid worldly things but also because I’ve been writing a book! Who would’ve thought!? Although, I just went back and looked at that blog entry I wrote in January of 2018 about the change that I was about to face as I was about to enter college, I even wasn’t sure where I would attend. I’m here right now to tell you how those four years have shaped me into the young lady that I am today and how these past four years have assured me of the footprint that I will leave not only in Boone, North Carolina but on this planet one day.
I obviously chose to attend Appalachian State University. I haven’t regretted a single second of it. Well, maybe a few times I wish I could’ve transferred but that wasn’t because of the school, that was just because I got really good at running away from my problems for a while.
I’m sitting here in Espresso News, a coffee shop in Boone that I was also sitting in writing one of my first entries. As I sit here and reflect on my time at App State, I start to get really emotional. I’m getting emotional because I’m about to experience another big change, I’m moving all the way to Austin, Texas and I couldn’t be happier. But this time is different. In the entry that I wrote my senior year of high school, I was so ready to get out of Raleigh and so ready leave all those shit heads from high school, in high school. It’s so so so different this time. For the first time ever, I have a place to miss. I’m so grateful that I get to miss somewhere so much. I keep thinking about the day that I drive down the mountain for the last, final time and I can’t even stomach the idea of it. It’s like a giant weight in my stomach is being flung around.
I’m so confident in my choice of Austin because I’ve had my heart set on it since I was 18, when I wrote that last entry. I’ve got a job and a roommate and on the verge of signing an apartment lease. How weird is that? I don’t feel like I’m old enough to grow up like this, it’s so strange. In all of this change, I’m still so scared. I find it so funny that in my last entry I was wishing for a change so far away that I wanted to move to a college in San Diego, California when I was just 18 years old. Now I’m 21, approaching 22 and moving to another state far far away from my family and friends and I don’t feel that push that I felt when I was 18 and naive. That’s not because I’m not ready or confident of myself, because I am. It’s because I’ve gotten to grow where I am planted the last four years. I got my heart broken by jobs, friends, boyfriends and a pandemic. I got to experience the greatest love and warmest hugs to this day. I’ve felt feelings that I never thought that I would feel, like crippling anxiety to the point I couldn’t get out of bed for four days. I am so thankful for all of those feelings and while I’m ready for my next move, I’m not ready to leave those memories and feelings. My biggest fear is wishing away my four years here because you really only get to do college once.
My fear in moving so far away is because of the things that I will be missing. I won’t be three hours away from my sister and her fiancé and their soon to be family. I won’t be three hours away from my parents. I won’t be able to drive home for my moms birthday or just for a weekend to go to the church I’ve attended for years. I won’t be able to drive home to give my dad a hug and play with my sisters dogs. While all of that may sound depressing, it’s also really humbling because it’s going to teach me the true definition of home. My parents moved out of my childhood home about five months ago and I’ve been torn apart since, but now that everything is starting to move so fast and transition, I now know the feeling that my parents feel. My parents are so excited for their new life in their new home, just as I am so excited for my life in my new home. I can’t be angry at my parents for closing that chapter and starting a new one when I’m doing the same exact thing.
While this entry may seem like once giant rant and not much of a blog post, the point that I really wanted to touch on is the idea that now is the time I am putting my old shoes with holes in them from the past four years, and putting on my new shoes. Now is the time that I will get blisters, but in a good way. That sounds funny I’m sure, if you haven’t read my previous entry. But it’s true. I’m tossing the shoes I’ve walked across the world in from the past for years and I’m putting on a new pair. The new pair is stiff, really clean (to the point that it’s scary), not molded to my feet whatsoever and my new pair of shoes is a pair of shoes I’ve never owned before. The cool part about this new pair of shoes that I’m about to put on is that in a year or so, I’ll probably be getting another pair of shoes because those shoes too will be worn out and ready for a fresh pair.