💗Thinking ahead

Hello everyone!!

Today's been a weird day. It is now spring break, and the weather is incredible! Just last week, we were battling 40+ mph blizzards and whatnot, before a dramatic snap into the 70's we're seeing this week. I ran a few miles at track this morning, got a haircut, and then... spent most of my day in a daze.

I touched on this topic a bit in my last post, but I'm going to go in a bit more emotional depth here. Within the next month and a half, I will be making a decision on where to go to college. I will be taking my final IB exams within a month after that, and then, in a couple/few months I will be leaving the house to start my adult life. This is something that I am finding to be not just stressful, but confusing.

There was a time when I felt like attending Lincoln High School was a major mistake. Every day, I would miss my middle-school friends, as I watched them text about shared teachers and experiences in our group chats. I felt both alone and unsure of my position at LHS. The IB program loomed over my head as a really big, scary ordeal (which, as it turns out, I overestimated in most ways). It took me a year and a quarter to really feel like I had made the right decision in becoming a Link, but since then I have never doubted my application to the IB program.

Straying from the average path for a Moore Middle School student allowed me to learn to be more confident in myself and my ability to make friends. I know how to find a home for myself wherever I go, and I am confident that I will be able to do just that wherever I end up.

What I am more afraid of is leaving behind the warm community I have built for myself. I have (remarkably) become friends with some incredible people! I am not just talking about people who are nice to me, or who have shared interests, but people who I believe have a really good set of core values and beliefs. I know that there is a lot more that I could learn from these people in my life, and I also feel as if there are plenty more laughs and hijinks that could be in store for us. Whether I end up across the country for college, or just across town, I know that my social dynamics will change.

One thing that my Moore-to-LHS experience has taught me is that one major contributing factor to a friendship can be a shared environment or set of problems. While I am sure that it is certainly possible to remain friends with someone after graduating, there will be a loss of that binding factor unless you both end up in the same environment next. My friends are, in general, not considering going to college to study mathematics, so any path I take will ultimately result in us not occupying the same environment.

My one major comfort is that I have been practicing keeping in touch with some of my older friends. They are scattered across the globe, in all different types of post-high-school paths. One of my closest friends has been incredibly open to scheduling monthly or bi-monthly calls to catch up, which has given me confidence that perhaps it is possible to keep those doors open.

I didn't really mean for this post to become such an emotional dump😭. I guess that I needed therapeutic writing more than I realized. I share these fears not because they are debilitating, or even a major factor in my life, but because they are kind of a taboo subject. It is really interesting to be standing at a major crossroads in my life, and I believe that documenting my emotions, the good and the bad, will give me something comforting to look back on.

Don't worry, I'm aiming for this blog to have a lot of variety to it! Not every post is going to be life or emotional updates (but you can also look forward to more of those!)!! I have some really neat content in mind for future posts, but for now I need to start working towards bed. 

I'm working on this book called Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett. It is the last book in the Death series (within the discworld universe). It is a good book, fun and clever, and maybe what I need at the moment. Reading about time in such a laissez-faire universe might be putting into perspective the ridiculousness of our human condition. It is really lovely to live a life where these are my most pressing concerns. I am lucky to have shared time with such special people in my life.

Thank you, for spending time with me.

Goodnight!😴