Week One of College

Be messy and complicated and afraid and show up anyway.

Glennon Doyle Melton 

That, my friends, is how I felt about this week. My first-week of school of my last semester before I graduate with my associate's degree (that’s a crazy thing to write down, by the way). On Monday, knots were in my stomach, not because I didn’t particularly want to start school, but because the thought of starting school meant that I’m moving one step closer the next part of my life and I don’t quite know what that next part holds. I’ve been itching to get out of this season that I’m currently in, but now that I’m actually on the verge of doing so, I’m back peddling.

Why am I doing this?

Why and I swimming back upstream when all I wanted for the longest time was to move faster down it?

To be honest, I don’t know. I don’t know why this fear grips me so tight. I think it could possibly be the unknown. The fact that, even though I plan and have an idea of where I’m going to go or do what I’m going to do, it’s never for certain, there is always the possibility of things falling through. There is also the fact that it could not be like I imagine it would be once I get there.
Never the less, all these feelings came up on the first day of the last few months before things change. This is the time before it changes. The calm waters before the hurricane. And Just thinking of it all made me afraid.
I showed up anyway, though. I showed up, even with my messiness, my complicatedness, my afraidness. All of it. And you know, moving toward a new area of life isn’t so bad ( and my French III professor is this nicest one professor you could ever have).
So all of this is to say, I made it through, the first week, at least. And I’ll keep making it through, through the normal and through the change and through the new. Through all of this life, I’ll make it.

You will, too. Despite the mess, the complex, and the fear show up anyway.