Tonight is the last night I'll get to spend here in my bed at Kent. It truly doesn't feel real.
This place has become my home for the last eight months. It has become my everything and I am so unwilling and sad to let it go. How do you willingly let go of the best year of your life? The happiest you've ever been? The most comfortable you've ever felt? You don't. It's hard and it's sucky and I don't want to. I've felt off all week long as my friends started to go home, the boxes of packed items stacked up in my room, and I started seeing more and more parents. I felt weird and I couldn't put my finger on it and today it just finally clicked.
I was taking down my poster and then out of the blue, I just started crying and I let myself cry (and I let myself cry right now) because it's okay to feel sad about all this and angry and scared. It makes me so incredulous how at the end of August last summer I was scared to come here. Now I'm scared to go back home.
It's been giving me a lot of anxiety these past few weeks thinking about going back to my 'old life,' because I'm not the 'old me.' I don't even recognize me, but in the best way possible. I've grown so much this year and I'm so proud of myself. I read back on some of my posts before I came and I wanted to accomplish so much, I had such high hopes and I am thrilled that I achieved every single one of the things I wanted for myself. Peace, happiness, independence, friends, a future, and so much more. I can't believe who I've become and it's so exciting and exhilarating. I just hope it stays.
I hope my home doesn't turn me into her again. That girl who's sad and alone and depressed. Who thinks too much and cries too often. Who isn't happy with herself or her life. I want to be done with her. Forever. And I'm just so nervous about her coming back this summer.
But for now I can't worry about that. I need to focus on this incredible life that God given me this year and count every one of my blessings, realizing I had a perfect year. A year I would not change one single thing. And I needn't not be scared or sad or worried because I get to come back in four months.
In the end though, it's more than the fact that I'll be back and Kent will always be here and all that. It's the fact that no one or nothing can take these experiences or memories away from me. This will always stand true as the first and best year of my new life; in Christ and in happiness. No matter what changes this summer, next school year, or even with me: I had a beautiful, unforgettable first year of college.
See you soon, Kent. I love you.
With much love, Lauren.
