And They're Off...

There was a day when I was about 11 and had just started the 7^th grade. I remember walking into the side entrance of my old elementary school and looking around. The walls were the same familiar walls and the same went for the bulletin boards and the floors and the classrooms. Everything was as I had left it only months earlier. It was one clear defining moment however, when I realized nothing in fact was really the same. I walked into the building this day while class was still in session. I looked into the gym and saw the kids running around. I heard the gym teacher blowing the whistle. I saw this class happening right before my eyes. Suddenly, my perspective on everything was different. I had spent six years of my life in that building. I went from a doe-eyed five year old with a Pocahontas backpack, to a preteen wannabe. Those walls had watched me grow up. I had learned so much and yet so little. I saw these kids in gym – ones I had never seen before and would probably never see again- and all at once I realized a harsh reality. This school went on without me. Life goes on without me. My elementary school didn’t need me, it never needed me. My sense of the familiar didn’t wholly belong to me. I was pushing forward whether I liked it or not. It was quite the eye-opening realization.

I wasn’t that upset to move on to high school. I wasn’t even that upset when I graduated either. While I had never in my wildest dreams believed my high school graduation would ever come, the years of teen angst and hormonal stupidity were behind me. The real chapter(s) of my life was about to begin.

I could write a story and-a-half about my freshman year of college. I was far too naïve to have the credit I thought I deserved. I attempted to dive head first into this grandiose life I just expected would fall in my lap. When it didn’t, I realized there was a chance it never would.  I can go into depth with that at another time, but to make a long story short, I took control of my own destiny and made a decision that would change my life forever.

I spent the next three years growing more than I had ever thought possible. If the immature little person I was 4 years ago could see all that was about to happen, she’d be dumbfounded. I finally learned to express myself. With the semester I spent away, it made for a grand total of only 5 semesters at the University of Hartford.  Five semesters of about fifteen weeks each. That’s seventy-five weeks. Five hundred and twenty five days. Lumped together, that’s just shy of a year and a half. In such a small amount of time, I found the courage, passion and education I had set out to find; all of which I could have only dreamed about. I was given so much to be prepared for the “real world”.  Today, I’m one step closer to whatever it is that even means and I am very thankful for that.

The day of my college graduation made me feel like that small child second-guessing her decision to ride a scary roller coaster. It’s like that moment where you’re strapped in and the car has started moving; you know you want desperately to get out, but it’s too late. Donning a cap and gown, I walked through the gymnasium doors. It all looked as I had seen it every day before and yet, it would never be the same again. Hartford doesn’t need me. It never needed me to begin with. I was the one that needed it. The whole time I was there was like the anticipation of waiting in line at a scary roller coaster. I knew my time would come and I was excited for it. The second I walked across that stage was like the moment gravity took over. Life was going on and there was no possibility of looking back. I was now at the will and power of the world.

I drove off campus as an undergrad for the very last time and One Republic’s Gonna Be A Good Life was playing on the radio. I knew from day one when I went to Hartford, that fate truly existed. I had felt like I belonged there. Hearing that song made me feel like fate was only beginning. I knew from then on things would never be the same, but I also knew they would turn out fine as well. I’m not sad to see it go. I will miss it definitely, but it has all moved on without me. No matter where I go, it will continue on without me, but I myself never could have continued on without it.