College

By the end of the month, I will have made my decision. By the end of the month, my college admission confirmation is due. I envy people who have no shame or doubt about moving into a new role in life, but now more than ever I find myself conflicted. Maybe it's the unfaltering concept of the unknown that holds me back; the absolute blindness of not knowing if or where I'll be happy, or how my units will transfer. Not knowing if I'll make friends, or be forgotten by my old ones, or be constantly homesick. Not knowing if I will thrive on my own and living off of top ramen, or be constantly working, or fall to the pressure and guilt of my job.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I don't know what it is that I'm looking for. One path tantalizes me with the possibility of restoring everything that I once loved about my life - all of those cold evenings that have been lumped together in my mind as one grand memory of what contentment felt like. That feeling has so long been forgotten, that I'm not even sure if I will recognize it again, or have the courage  to chase after it, or even want it at all.

Another path offers a new start, in a new place - where the potential for happiness is great, but the potential for catastrophe is greater.Would I even be able to pull off what I've so long been searching for? Will it be what I expected? Am I even capable of experiencing the all too romanticized college experience? Or would it change me, like so many others I used to know? Will the person I've fought to become and strive to be fall away? Am I strong enough?

The final path offers beauty, and freedom. But I know that it would also allow my tendency to turn inward to become all consuming. From that point, there is no turning back.

In my head, I keep playing back something an old teacher once said: once you go, there is no coming back. Nothing you can do will change that. It is mirrored with my own precaution. Two years are gone. You don't have time to not get it right.

Even as I write this, I can hear you scoffing. I really am envious of how easy it is for you. My mind is the best thing I've got, but it can sometimes be the worst.

I really can't be expected to focus on pilgrim lit. when I'm in this frame of mind.