So I’m sitting here studying for a test that I have tomorrow and what do you know, I hear a song come on (“Can’t Go Back Now” by The Weepies), and all of a sudden I’m just undone with sentiment. Isn’t is crazy how that happens? You hear one song (those damn Weepies) and all of a sudden your mind opens up and memories and emotions flood in. What! Why! Don’t you know I have a test tomorrow?
It’s okay though, cause these little moments are so personal to me. There’s a verse in the song that goes like this….
I can’t really say
Why everybody wishes they were somewhere else
But in the end, the only steps that matter
Are the ones you take all by yourself
As rough as it is to admit it…it’s so true. I listened to this song when I started writing my eulogy for my Muzzie’s funeral this last July, and I’ve listened to it at certain points in my life when I was going through a lot, and it always brings me back to my center and reminds me how many emotions I have within me. I swear guys, I’m carrying around more emotions than the average human…it’s real.
This summer I experienced what I can only refer to as a moment of self-discovery (or ten moments). Four people that I loved passed away within the sequence of two and a half months, I took a leap of faith and let go of a major relationship in my life, and I discovered passions that I didn’t know existed. I laughed, I cried, and I learned so much. And yet…I had this huge barrier between me and my emotions that was standing up tall. Maybe it was all of the change happening at once, the adrenaline, the week I spent crying in a hospital, or the amount of work I was doing each day, but somehow…I didn’t feel much of anything except for random spurts of inspiration and loss.
So about two weeks ago, I’m floating through what I thought was my normal routine as of this semester, and as I reached lunchtime between classes, I lost it. Like “here I go, I’m about to start sobbing on the floor of this public cafeteria on a campus of 50,000 people” kind of lost it. I. Lost. It. My emotions that had built up came rushing in and there it was: the pain, the hurt, the loss, the shock, the pure horror of everything that was absent from my life that hadn’t been about four months ago.
So I went home, ate a banana, laid in my bed, and cried. And panicked. And cried some more. I had to leave for rehearsal about an hour later, so I took a deep breath and walked out the door. For the last two weeks, I’ve been feeling large amounts of emotions–powerful emotions–and I’m starting to learn how to cope with them, but man it is hard people.
What I’m trying to get at, is that growing up is hard. You don’t imagine your mentor or your grandparent dying when you’re so young. You don’t imagine how you’ll feel when you start picturing your future with someone before you can legally drink, and you sure as heck don’t imagine what it will feel like when you make grown up decisions and start questioning them.
Here I am, at twenty years old, discovering loss and passion on a scale that felt light-years away, and I feel like I’m halfway through one door and I have no choice but to move forward. Which is the truth, honestly. We can really only move forward.
I am so afraid and so nervous for what my future holds, the questions I’m asking myself or being asked by others, and whether I’m turning into the person I want to be. But here’s the thing: I can’t go back. And there’s a plan for me, I’m sure, and I have to start moving forward instead of looking back. Because a week ago, I was in a full on panic about performing in the show that we just closed, and today, I am so thankful that I took the chance and did something I had started closing myself off to. I feel alive and well, despite the stress and sadness that I’m still fighting through.
We have to take chances. We have to move forward, and we really have to stop focusing on what’s behind us. There are so many adventures ahead of us, and we’re here for a reason. So let’s go discover that reason.
Dear Girl, 