2020

This upcoming year is extremely important to me. You guys may not know the reasons for that, so allow me to catch you up. I am a middle child. The only girl in-between two brothers. In August of 2018, we moved my older brother into a dorm room. I’ve been counting down the days until I leave for college ever since then and living vicariously through my brother’s stories of him and his friends.
Why? Well, let me explain. It sounds harsh like I’ve lived some awful life that I can’t wait to get away from, but that’s the opposite of true. I’ve lived eighteen wonderful years so far. But, for those eighteen years, I have been homeschooled. Would I change that fact? No. Absolutely not. My highly introverted self wouldn’t have been able to handle public school. I’ve enjoyed being homeschooled, but the past few years, I’ve been so lonely it hurts sometimes. You see, the few friends I did have attended church with me. I lost those friends when my family decided to go to a different place of worship. We have been at our new church for a while now, but I don’t make friends easily. Especially with the hurt of lost friendships so fresh in my heart and mind.
Now, to the exciting part. This year, 2020, it’s my turn to go away to college. I’m not going far, and I will have family nearby, but I am going nonetheless. It’s the start of a brand new chapter. Here, in the first year of a brand new decade, with the last one so full of pain, I get to start over. I get to move away from a town that constantly reminds me of the pain I’ve been through and start to make new memories. I finally get to meet new people that don’t know me instead of running into someone around every corner who knows my mom, or my dad, or my grandparents. (I’m from a small town, by the way. In case you didn’t figure that out on your own.) I get to start living as my own person and really find out who I’m going to be.
I’ve felt so stuck the past couple of years. Like I was living in one moment. Unable to move. And yet, oddly enough, I also feel like I’ve grown and changed more than ever. I’m excited to see what other changes college will bring. I know I won’t be the same person I am today when I graduate. But my question is…Who will I be? Who will I have met? What will I have done? What will I have seen and learned?
I’m hoping I meet the people who will be my lifelong friends. I’m hoping I meet a kindred spirit. The Diana to my Anne. The Lizzy to my Jane. I always call this so far fictitious character “my Jennifer” because Jennifer is the name of my mother’s friend who she met in college. The one she can pick up with like no time has gone by. The one she can count on. The one she lived with after school. The one who understands her on that deep level that I long for.
I want to do, and see, and learn so many things. There are so many kinds of people I want to meet. I’ve waited so long to find “my Jennifer,” and now that I’m finally staring the opportunity right in the face, I can hardly believe it. It’s finally my year. My year to move on. My year to learn new things. My year to be me. My year to perhaps meet friends I’ve waited my whole life to find. It’s finally my year to live, and for maybe the first time, I am truly, deeply, fully excited to be alive. Happy New Year, everyone!