Lavender 1950's Dress, White Bow Heels, Crystal Necklace: Thrifted.
Vintage Floral Hat: Gift from my lovely blogging friend, Hannah.
Tomorrow is the day I've been waiting for. For years. For months. For weeks. For days. I am leaving for college and starting my new life.
Deciding to go away to college is one of the most courageous decisions I've ever made. Actually, I'd say the most courageous decision. I've lived a safe life with many regrets. I don't take chances, I don't follow my heart, and I settle for less than I deserve. But I'm tired of doing all of these things...
I want to live and be happy. I want to learn all sorts of new things, express my creativity to its maximum potential. I want to make the friends I never got to have and laugh until my stomach hurts- what people always talk about (and I dream of feeling). I want to meet new people, be introduced to different personalities and different lifestyles. I want to be scared, scared out of my mind and feel happiness that I've never thought I could feel. I want to stay out late and go to a party (just to see what it's like). And on the other hand- I want to stay up late all night, studying, just to say I have.
I want to get lost, find my way, and lose myself. And find myself again, of course. I want to discover the things I never knew about myself, and reassure myself in the person I'm becoming. I want to fall in love, forget all about the boy who broke my heart, and find someone who will love me for me, flaws and all. I want to prove to people that they were wrong about me, show them what they never thought I could do and do what I never thought I could do.
I want so, so much...so much it hurts. And I know that I can't find all of these things in this town. I can hardly find any of them. This town will always be my home, my safe place, and where I come to for refuge...but I will never get to experience LIFE here. The life I deserve to live. Not the one crying over a silly boy who was my everything for so many years (and shouldn't have been), not sitting in my house all day, being bored, and certainty not living this life in between the lines like I always have.
I went out to take these pictures today, completely in awe that it would be my last time for awhile. I visited all of my favorite spots...the lake with the lily pads and croaking frogs that reflects the sun in the evening. The quiet, haunting woods where the wind tickles my hair and makes me look behind my shoulder. The dried up ground, risen up with tree roots, and lighting to die for. An old bridge, carved with the names of past and present loves, including my own love which seem like so long ago... I went to each and every spot, taking a picture at each one, soaking in all that I had left. I started crying, totally overwhelmed by what I'm going to go through tomorrow. What it means to start life over.
You wait for something for so long, dreaming about it and wishing for it every day...and when it's finally tangible? It scares you. You didn't think it was going to happen, that it was still light years away...almost happening to someone else.
And in that moment, you just want to go back. Back to the days when he held you as a young teenage girl, back to that first day of high school- looking up to the underclassmen, dreaming of being them, back to the lunch table of people who you never really considered friends but now you realize they were so much more...back to the simple holidays with your family and the late night runs to Mcdonald's and your grandmother clipping your finger nails for you--holding your face in her hands, crying because she's going to miss her first grandchild going off to college. Because all that's gone now and you can't get it back. You only have a blank diary page in front of you, waiting to be filled.
Filled with happiness, tears, fears, anxiousness, disappointments, cloud nines, loves, desperations, exhaustions, confusions, nostalgias, and hopes.
I am scared out of my mind for tomorrow. For this week. For the rest of my life. But I just can't sit by and watch my life pass me by. I want to do something and be someone. I want to reach my dreams, fail at something, then pick myself back up again.
I want to find out who someone like me is and I want to start right now. Because I deserve to. We all do.
With much love, Lauren.
