You know I have found that there is nothing quite so sobering as registering for community college. If only because you're given so much time to wait, think, and reflect on your life choices.
I probably waited a collective 3 hours yesterday while registering and for the first time in my life I did not think to bring a book with me so I had a lot of time to just sit and think.
This is kind of what I came to at the end of all of it.
I love my parents, I am so lucky for my family because I know that it's not as common today to have both parents still together and so supportive of pretty much everything I choose to do. However this means I have done very little without their assistance, and I made the decision with coming home that I needed to do more of that. I don't think it's that I couldn't, I just needed to start pushing myself to figure it out on my own.
So I went to register alone.
I know what you're thinking, my god, this girl is almost 20 and she hasn't registered for school on her own (which isn't completely true, I successfully and quite easily registered at Millikin on my own for all three semesters, hence why I had no fear I could figure it out at Moraine)?!?!?!
But for a lot of things in my life this is true. I have always had someone by my side when things got tough, and you know, part of my doesn't think their is anything wrong with this.
I have a very supportive family and friend group. But I had realized how much I needed to believe in myself, alone, a few days previous.
You see for my job at Sunrise I needed to go through some procedures at a clinic, you know drug test, small physical and finally a two part TB test. I actually went and did this all on my own as well.
None of this bothered me, the physical was a simple "touch your toes", "lift this", "read that" kinda thing. I knew I was clean for the drug test, but the TB test was a shot, and this made me sweat a bit.
Laugh all you want, call me whatever names make you feel better about yourself, but shots are not fun for anyone (except for maybe masochist, and people with needle fetishes, for which I am not judging, I don't know your life.)
Now I never had problems with shots, I was a relatively good shot taker, but I had always had someone with me (namely my mother) to focus my attention on.
You'd never be able to tell from my outward appearance, the nurse probably had no idea what was going on in my head at the time, but while I sat their patiently for the first part of the test, my mind was a whirlwind.
I wished I had taken up my mother's offer to come with me, I wish I had coerced Kara to come with me, someone, anyone, why did I do this alone?!?!?!
And then another completely different thought came to me, I am perfectly capable on my own.
I know it sounds stupid, or obvious, or whatever but that's exactly how it happened.
I took a deep breath said that to myself (not out loud of course of the nurse might have thought I was crazy) once more and just looked away and it was over. Simple and painless, like I knew it would be.
I realized that so much of my life was spent receiving comfort from others, which is fine! Great in fact! BUT I think we need to understand that while those who love us give us strength we need to know there is strength in us alone. And this applies to more than just shots and registering for classes.
I have no doubt so many of you out there have figured this out years before me, and probably some others haven't, and some of you are probably thinking, "I've done all that kind of stuff on my own for years! What's this pussy talking about?"
And rightfully so, but I hope those people who are saying that can think of this on a grander scale.
Of course I'm going to continue taking care of myself alone, learning how to manage my life without the help of others as one should, but I'd like to take it a little bit farther, and this is maybe where someone else can take something from this article.
When I'm alone, don't feel the need to look at my phone 500 times in a minute.
Feeling comfortable just standing or sitting, not fidgeting wondering what others might be thinking about me alone.
And trusting myself. That I will always have the love and comfort from my friends and family, but that I am enough.
Of course a lot of you may already know this and this article was a complete waste of time. To you I am sorry. But this was something I needed to figure out for myself and it's not a huge jump, but it's a step in the right direction for making myself feel more whole again.
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