18
Day 18
My favorite year of high school was my senior year. I remember feeling "I made it!" Made it in the sense of knowing childhood was ending and I was transitioning to something I really had no idea about - young adulthood and the choices that would come along with that. Aside from that, I was just excited to be a senior. I could not WAIT to take my senior photos and wear a feather boa (I can't explain the fascination, but I knew that's what I'd be wearing lol!) I just remember being excited overall about the unknowns of what was to come.
I look back on how I felt at this time, where things in my life were changing but they were also falling into place. One of the things that stands out is my conscious choice to "care less." I chose to care less about what others thought, care less about having my appearance fit in to what I thought others viewed as desirable, and I chose to walk into what felt true to me at that time. If I wanted to attend an event or hang out with new people (even if my closest friends did not) I chose to do it anyway. If I wanted to go to prom even though I did not have a date, I went anyway. It meant taking the risk to be different than some may have known me to be, and deal with the consequences of that. It wasn't a reckless version of "caring less", but more of caring more about self care. There was something very freeing that year when I chose to care less about what was going on outside of me, and choosing to walk with what felt true to me.
That change in my demeanor proved to be fruitful. Not only did I feel lighter, more empowered, I felt adventurous and open. I pushed myself to do things that were outside of my box of shyness, and I know by the end of my senior year, not only did I see myself differently but so did others. I chose to go away to college with a clear knowing that I needed to challenge myself to break away from my immediate family. I was hyper aware of the changes I was feeling and what I needed to grow. This openness, awareness and release led me to love and sealed bonds with some friends that last to this day.
This spirit of my 18 year old self has started to creep back into my life without me knowing it. The past few years have definitely been times of conscious change and self awareness, and I'm more excited about it now, because I can reflect on the past success of tapping into that energy. Instead of embracing life shifts with fear and resistance, I can use it as a time to explore who I am, allowing life to flow and evolve, trusting that I'm growing into the next great version of myself. I'm grateful for that 18 year old version of me, who was more courageous than I realized at that time.
"There's a point, around the age of twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities." Ursula K. Le Guin
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