I haven't posted anything on here in a while, so I guess I should give a quick update as to what has been going on in my life. I've been living in Birmingham, Alabama for the past few months finishing up my degree so I can finally move on with the rest of my life (whatever exactly that means). And I've gotta say, it's been quite the experience. Maybe sometime I'll fill in more of the details, but not right now. I'll leave that for later.
I've actually spent the past four months longing to move back to the Midwest, wanting to leave this really bad nightmare of a southeastern state I can't seem to escape. And yet, I've recently come to realize that leaving here means that I will go back home to St. Louis, only to move back in with my parents. Rather than being the independent adventurer trying to make her mark in a new city, I will be that unemployed postgrad bum living back in her parents' house. In essence, I will trade in my independence and self-discovery for friends and family closer than nine hours away.
While the idea of once again having people nearby again does sound somewhat wonderful, I am starting to realize that it will soon change my own journey of self-discovery. Yes, I will continue to grow and change even while living at home, but it will not at all be the same as living in a new city trying to forge my own path. It has only taken me the majority of my time here to realize this, but it did eventually occur to me that I do have a purpose here. I work 40+ hours a week (albeit unpaid) and have been training for a half marathon (I logged 13 miles on the treadmill yesterday). My life generally runs on my own schedule. I have made small and large changes to my life for the better and I have finally begun to understand what I can realistically expect on my road to adulthood. By the time I return to St. Louis I will have a new phone, a new car, a new college degree, and a new heart, both one that can physically complete a half marathon and emotionally has finally learned the true meaning of being single. Again, I could go more into detail, but I'll spare those for some other time.
While it has been lonely here at times, I have learned how to more effectively improve upon myself in the time I have lived here. And now that time has almost come to an end. I once read a quote that I feel applies to my life at this particular moment. I felt this quote upon leaving college back in May, and I will once again feel this when I move back home in December. As a side note, leaving college has been more of a grieving process than I would have ever thought, and while I will not be nearly as sad to leave this horrid state of Alabama, I do feel this quote sums up a great deal of any sentiment I would put into words:
"You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place. Like you'll not only miss the people you love, but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and place because you'll never be this way ever again."
There may only be a few acquaintances here that I may fall out of touch with once I leave, but otherwise there won't exactly be people here that I truly love that I am leaving behind. At the same time, I will miss the version of myself that I have began to cultivate and grow upon while living here. True, I will be moving myself and current personality back home with me, but I can't help but realize that there will be a sort of stagnation in my life before things can once again pick up and move forward again. Before I find the job that I am supposed to have, or the city where I am supposed to live, or the man that I hopefully am supposed to marry, I am going to have to take some time off to be back where I started, living in the same house I grew up in, trying to figure out a clearer picture of exactly what I want to be when I grow up.
But I guess it's nice to still know that I have opportunity ahead of me. That word keeps floating around, and I have to keep reminding myself of it. I may not know where I am headed, and while that is a scary thought, it also means that I have possibilities and options for my future. In the meantime, I have two more months to continue improving upon my life on my own as an individual, only financially dependent and emotionally reliant on others from a distance. I will miss the person I have become while living here, but will have to learn to take these experiences, both good and bad to shape my experiences in the future, wherever I may live and wherever God make take my life.
Opportunity and change.
Two words that create such fear, yet are so full of possibility.
