I was lying on the hardwood floor of my yoga studio, curled up in the fetal position, trying to blink away tears. It was the summer between high school and college. People write songs and films about this time. This was supposed to be my time. I was expecting some sort of magical summer romance or adventure that I could tell amazing stories about to all my new soon-to-be college roommates.
Nope. Instead I was there on the floor, feeling more vulnerable than I had ever remembered feeling before. While most of my friends accepted their college of choice and moved on with their decision behind them, I simply couldn't, or at least I didn't want to. I was still between two colleges: Florida State University and George Washington University. The former is in my home state where I had a support system of friends and could come home on the weekends. The latter is 1,000 miles away in Washington DC where I knew absolutely no one. At that moment, through my tears, I was completely divided with no vision of where I would be come August.
Eventually I pushed myself up, rolled up my yoga mat, and slowly drifted out of the room, carrying the realization that I was more entrenched in my indecision than I initially thought.
My yoga instructor seemed to have noticed my despair and gently asked me how everything was going. One thing I love about my studio back home is that everyone there makes you feel so important and cared for, even if they don’t know you that well. I explained my situation, albeit not well, as I wasn’t even sure what was running through my head at that point. His proposed solution was to keep it simple, just flip a coin.
This sounded ridiculous to me, of course. Yes, flipping a coin is an appropriate way of determining who should have the first move in Monopoly. Choosing an educational institution for the next four years? Not so much.
Yet, I did anyways. Heads was to be George Washington University, tails was to be Florida State University.
It landed on heads.
Following this, my teacher asked how I felt about the result, in essence, how I felt about traveling hundreds of miles away and leaving my family and friends behind.
“I’m afraid.”
I had lived my entire life in a small beach town in Florida. It was home: the way your clothes smell after last night’s bonfire, the way the warmth of the sun sedates you each time you walk outside no matter how bad your day is going, the way people smile as they hold the door open for you even if your a couple feet away and have to do that awkward run thing. I love home. I’m comfortable with home. But I had become attached to home.
My teacher gave me one piece of advice, of which has been an ingredient in each decision I have made since: “Growth occurs when you step outside of your comfort zone.”
It took awhile for that to sink in, but once it did, it was profound. I gave myself permission to be uncomfortable, to invite a little entropy into my life. I now attend the George Washington University in DC, making completely new friends and experiencing a completely new way of life. And I am so uncomfortable.
But I have grown. I have scheduled my own doctors’ appointments, I have tried out new recipes to cook myself for dinner, I have unsuccessfully, then successfully navigated myself through the metro system labyrinth. In a series of small victories, I have become stronger, and strong enough to be unashamed to say that I have become stronger.
I have been wanting to start a blog for a couple of years now. Every so often I would create a new page, start writing posts, but for some reason abandon it. A few days ago it occurred to me that I had been experiencing the same familiar feeling I was exposed to three years ago and that we are all constantly exposed to: fear.
So here we are, my first post. Instead of spending my mental real estate on worrying about the proper font or how many people will actually ever read this, I am writing. I am sharing this very human experience, hopefully with other humans who can relate. And that's all I can do, just push through the fear and the self-generated doubts to create something meaningful.
I think society often regards strength as being rigid and impermeable. I have come to realize that this conception is flawed. The strongest skyscrapers are those that can move with the wind and the strongest seeds are those that can adapt to even the roughest conditions. Strength is born from a place of vulnerability, it’s in these moments where you’re curled up in the fetal position with tear-stained cheeks.
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