It's been about two weeks since I picked up my diploma from my university's registrar and the reality has finally sunk it. I graduated. The past four years of my life is over and I am rapidly moving towards the next stage of my life and I do not feel ready. I am still a child, I tell myself, I barely made it through college how am I going to survive on my own in a city I don't know?
My mom and I were talking while I was home for my sister's wedding, as if I didn't feel old enough she had to go and get married and make me feel older, and I realized that I now have to be in charge of all my important legal documents. I got a credit card this year..granted it was only because my dad signed me up for it and told me that I had it, but still! These past few months adulthood has hit me like a train and I am still reeling. Things like flying on planes by myself, checking into hotels alone, going across the country all by myself, and having to learn how to Uber (yes, I did not know how to do that and had to ask a friend how it worked). I have learned a lot about myself and one of the things is that, no matter how I might feel or what I will say, I am capable of being a "real" adult.
All these years I have felt like a 16 year old stuck in someone else's body, completely incapable of doing anything that I was supposed to know how to do. But over the past few months, I have started to feel like the almost 22 year old woman that I am. I can take on the world and no one is going to stop me. I don't know what has caused this change in me, whether it is the fact I had my first real boyfriend, that I had to do so many trips on my own, or that I applied to and interviewed with graduate schools. Whatever sparked this change, I am grateful for it. I was so tired of living in a world that I did not understand and was not capable of interacting with.
My inner 16 year old is still there and pops up at times, like today when I was seriously craving ice cream, but she is quelled by my adult woman self who does responsible things like works out, goes grocery shopping (for actual food. I know, right?!), and feeds the 16 year old me dark chocolate when I want something sweet (because it really is so much healthier for you). I feel more myself than I have in years and while I miss who I used to be, because that was me for such a long time, things have changed now for the better and I am so glad to be moving forward and growing into myself.
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