As I’m sitting here at the edge of my bed, doing my best to type with some fluidity (considering I still don’t know how to properly utilize the keys), I cannot help but think back to my freshman year of high school. I was seriously lost at that time in my life, with limited contact, happiness, and curiosity. I had friends and questioned the world around me, but a dark pane was drawn that was perpetually enforced resulting in a very stagnant human being that lost faith in time. While we all agonize over its continual progression, time also allows for serious growth. So it is now in this present moment, being that 1:04 A.M in a house echoing silence, that I am extremely grateful to say that time has progressed me infinitely these past three years.

Over the last months of junior year, a multitude of events that I have never previously experienced transpired seamlessly. I cannot purely say that I did not endure the notorious pains of being a junior, and also encounter a plethora of emotions that drove my body to insanity, but I can say with absolute that the memories I have shared with my closest friends this year were some of the most joyous moments of my entire life. I have established myself amongst individuals I consider to be nothing less than the epitome of both sincerity and personality, which was by far the greatest feat. But imagining back to the isolated girl, dressed in acid washed jeans and a black crop top, what if I had chosen to give up. What if I had allowed something so equally precious and volatile as time, seize to exist? The very fact that I am sitting here behind this screen, devising a blog post that sanctions the role of writing in my life, is evidence enough of the distance I travelled. I have transformed myself immensely and understand my own values, abilities, and comforts. I am no longer drifted ashore, rather am swimming the current of human experience at the pace of my peers.

The following experiences consist of only few of the many that have dawned my direction, and have been added as vital components of my own definition: driving, hotel crashing, bonfires, getting grounded, relationships, fights, the ACT, concerts, etc. While just an empty list of events, each had an impact on me whether granting me a new found freedom or providing another obstacle to overcome. It was through these occurrences that I adventured outside my comfort, and strolled toward different.

I would always hear about college applications and the struggles of getting the right score on standardized tests, but to be personally involved seems almost surreal, as these past years went by in the blink of an eye. I am currently feeling an enormity of stress from the entire process of determining a future, due to a lack of elapsed time. In this way time evidently works to balance its religious perpetuation and influence on the growth of individuals. But without acknowledging both, observing such change is difficult; and, without that crucial observation one can truly be detracted from perceiving a genuine transformation.