I thought being 20 hrs away from home for 10 days was gonna be the end of the world.
It wasn't.
It was the first doorway into a new world for me - Kansas, then my first real job, then off to college...
Kansas wasn't the end of the world; it was the beginning of a new world.
2 yrs later I find myself feeling again like it's the end of my world. But not because of another new and strange beginning; this time, it's because of an ending.
The end of my college career (for the foreseen future anyway) - the end, the very bitter end, of 16 years of school (preschool all the way thru 2 yrs of college).
I've been "an adult" for two years now, but only just now does it really feel like my adulthood is beginning.
I just filed taxes for the first time, for goodness' sake.
I am finishing my decade-and-a-half-long school career.
I am ending everything I've ever known.
At 20 years old, I should feel that my life is only just beginning.
But instead I feel a deep and dark and very bitter ending.
I don't know where I'm going. And even with my faint ideas and plans for the future, I'm not fond of the unfamiliarity. The uncertainty and the unmarked territory.
Here I go, a timid 20, into the vast unknown of adulthood.
Here I go from 16 years of school straight into the workforce, straight into a new job.Here I go armed with dusty old childhood dreams, a bubbling cauldron of anxiety, and very little real-life experience, very very little connection with reality.
Here I go, with a teardrop cowering in the corner of my eye, with my resume, my little white car, my student loans, my stash of stuffed animals, my dismal hopes, my faded dreams, my raging fears, the occasional coffee, a few too little hours of sleep, and my sometimes flagging faith.
Here I go.
I am anxious.
I am uncertain.
I am feeling woefully unprepared, more than a little depressed, absolutely clueless and terribly unconfident.
But here I go.
And go I must.
And all I can do is continue to remind myself Who goes with me... and with Whom I go. 💚✝
