An Odd Year

Someone once told me it’s the odd number years. Those years are the hard ones. It’s usually the constant pull of highs and lows and the good years are the even numbers and the bad ones are the odd numbers. After this year I think I agree.

2017 was a year of firsts. It was a year of letdowns. It was a year of confusion. A year of realization. 

It happens so fast, like a car wreck you didn’t see coming. One wrong move and everything changes. 

The start of 2017 consisted of high expectations while coming off the high which was the year 2016. You think everything is great so of course, your positive outlook and gracious attitude will carry on to the next year because the date is only changing not your life. But for some reason that truly did mark the moment when things began to change. As spring faded to summer so did my feelings of infatuation with my new life at college. Not that I was necessarily unhappy, just maybe going through a rough patch. I was ready for summer to go back to how things were before I moved across the country. I wanted to go back to the city and be surrounded by my high school friends and hang out with my dog. Nothing too out of the normal. 

Through the summer months, I fulfilled those homesick cravings and I was ready to go back to my college life and take on the world. I had high expectations. I couldn’t wait to live in my adorable new cottage with my best friends and have my other gal pals a few cottages down. I just knew sophomore year would be the best yet. And I felt that way until two days before I moved back to school.

Twenty Years of Realization

It's 12:00am November 2nd, 2017. It is my birthday and I am now 20 years old. Two decades of life. It's ironic how we look forward to something for so long and by the time we finally reach that idolized point in time we are ready to move on to the next stage of life. 

College was my idolized stage of life from the age of twelve onward. I knew "those would be my years". I looked forward to moving away, making new friends, getting to finally create my own life for myself not the one I was given by circumstance growing up. Freshman year of college I would tell everyone that college was everything I ever imagined and more. It felt so right. I was thriving. It was exactly where I was supposed to be. But as seasons fade so did those awestruck feelings. After getting the crave for change out of my system I realized everything I had left back home. They always tell you you don't realize what you have until it's gone and man let me tell you, they were completely right. It's not that I gave up some spectacular life back home, it wasn't life changing or anything, but what I tried to replace it with did not suffice. 

I have learned to appreciate everything about 110% more than I ever did before moving away. I didn't realize how impactful the place I grew up was to me. How the plentiful opportunities shaped my interests and needs. How much the quality of conversation and the quality of friendships meant to me. I thought I knew before I left. I thought I knew so much. But really I was blind. I was the poster child for tunnel vision and I had absolutely no clue. I believed there was more out there. Not in a big world picture but in a relationships and sense of belonging.