I write this sitting in a coffee shop alone with an oat milk latte: For the final time, taking myself on a date in Ozaukee County before I move away. I spend it writing.
Today is Monday and at the end of the week I turn 20 and move into my first apartment. I’m thinking about the life that I am about to experience throughout these final two years of college. Living in a new place after being with my parents for the last year and a half, staying educated and surrounded by fellow students; what am I going to do to create the person I hope to become and be remembered as?
It is too late to think about starting to create this whole new woman that I envision for myself.
Rewind the tape; I've been crafting her from the start. Growing up my entire life in grade school and high school, I have spent each day thinking about what life would be like when I was able to start living. Little did I know, I always have been.
From a young age, we begin to construct the person that we are. It doesn't start the day we turn 18 or when we graduate high school or college or when we get our first full-time job. It doesn’t start when we have money or grow some boobs. Every time I accomplished something that I thought was going to be the “start of who I am,” the start of who I wanted to be was then pushed back to the next accomplishment I hoped to make in my horizon. My middle school years were spent thinking that I’ll be looked at differently when I’m in high school, my high school years were spent looking to college and now in my college years I often times find myself focused on life after graduation.
A majority of the decisions that I have made in my youth are still things that I remember today and probably will remember for a long time. I had a teacher in high school that told his classes at the beginning of each semester that he will never remember what grades we got, but he will never forget what kind of person that we were.
An example that I don’t want to write about, but am going to anyways, is the dreaded conversation of high school. I’ve been out for two years. However; I still choose to keep connections with certain people from my time in high school based off of the kinds of people that they were. It can then turn into a very divided situation in my head. I grapple with the idea of maintaining relationships with people solely based on the person that they were from 15-18 years old. For the people that did not give me a positive experience: Do I give them the benefit of the doubt in hopes that they grew up since then? Or should I continue to shy away because they were conscious enough to know the effect of their actions at that age? It can be easier said that done. The way that we act and the decisions that we choose to make start affecting our future from young on.
Some of my greatest accomplishments and memories were made years ago. Throughout my youth I have experienced so much. I have made big moves like making connections and experiencing great things. I have had small yet significant experiences like having had life changing conversations. 4-H taught me hard work and dedication, elementary school introduced me to current friends, a job that I started at 15 years old gave me 5 years of good laughs and experience of hard work. I could go on and on, but the commonality between them all is that I was so young when I experienced all of that. The time when I assumed my life would start when I was ‘older’ were times were I really was living.
A disposable camera photo of me on my first day of preschool.
All of the work, memories and connections made in my youth construct who I am today. What I do today will then influence tomorrow. Growing up with no prioritization of health has now led me to becoming passionate about wellness. I experienced what it was like to not have that a priority, listened to my body and mental health, and now prioritize health for a better tomorrow and future. Marquette has introduced me to the greatest people that I have ever met in my life. When we pass each other on the sidewalk and mention something about meeting next week for coffee, I text them later and actually plan it. When I surround myself with people that have an authentic care for me, it motivates me to continue being me in the time to come. I prepare for tomorrow by doing holistic actions today. The importance, though: I do not even think about tomorrow while doing it.
And that brings me to today. In a few days I can say that I have lived 2 decades on this earth. In each moment of those 2 decades I have shaped the person that I am today, and I will continue to shape the woman that I am. Continue to flourish and grow and change, but remember the past that has influenced the decisions we make for our future. The person you are in the present will allow you to transform the person to come.