I've been feeling pretty lazy since I arrived at my parents' place--watching back-to-back episodes of Nightmare Tattoo while my mom cooks for me. Perhaps it's because at this time next week, I'll be knee deep in school again.
Driving past the park full of young, anxious pre-students walking awkwardly with one or two excited parents in tow, I reminisced a time, over ten years ago now, when I was that anxious student.
When I went away to college at eighteen, I had never been away from home and family for more than two weeks at a time. I thought nothing of my new school's location or academic reputation, I was too busy trying not to cry in my top bunk. I found out later that my roommate was on the bottom bunk doing the same.
That same roommate is now married, has been for over ten years. And I, well...I have a dog. But visiting a coffee house on campus, I was keenly aware of how different I feel now, fifteen years after my first week in college.
I feel stronger, more confident, and less scared of everything new. I don't have to try so hard to fit in, to not be noticed. Mostly, I just feel I've earned the right to my place in the world, the right to rub people the wrong way if necessary.
At a local crêpe shop for breakfast, butterfly paintings on the wall reminded me that growth is natural, and transformation comes as much, if not more, from being alive than education.
After four years of undergraduate study, I told myself I wasn't going back to school unless I needed more education to do what I wanted to do in life.
Now here I am, ready to go.
OneArmGirl
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| New beginnings breakfast |
I haven't 'gone back to school' since the fall of 2001. Ironically my parents live in a college town, replete with old stone buildings, manicured parks, and late night coffee shops. Yesterday the campus was overrun with incoming freshmen, I mean, first year students.
Driving past the park full of young, anxious pre-students walking awkwardly with one or two excited parents in tow, I reminisced a time, over ten years ago now, when I was that anxious student.
When I went away to college at eighteen, I had never been away from home and family for more than two weeks at a time. I thought nothing of my new school's location or academic reputation, I was too busy trying not to cry in my top bunk. I found out later that my roommate was on the bottom bunk doing the same.
That same roommate is now married, has been for over ten years. And I, well...I have a dog. But visiting a coffee house on campus, I was keenly aware of how different I feel now, fifteen years after my first week in college.I feel stronger, more confident, and less scared of everything new. I don't have to try so hard to fit in, to not be noticed. Mostly, I just feel I've earned the right to my place in the world, the right to rub people the wrong way if necessary.
At a local crêpe shop for breakfast, butterfly paintings on the wall reminded me that growth is natural, and transformation comes as much, if not more, from being alive than education.
After four years of undergraduate study, I told myself I wasn't going back to school unless I needed more education to do what I wanted to do in life.
Now here I am, ready to go.
OneArmGirl
