I’ve recently undergone what I call: a change for myself. I want to focus on how this has affected how I feel personally. It has been very difficult for me to take the time to think through all of this because of the internalized guilt that I feel for trying to put myself first. I’ll explore that in a later post, though!

Have you ever experienced something and it just changed you in ways that you never even thought possible?

Maybe you went somewhere, met someone, really began to define your life passions, applied to go study abroad in an amazing foreign country…

Oh, wait. Did that not happen to you?

That sounds like such a cliche, now that I actually read it. It’s something that really happened to me, though.

I’ve been trying to write a blog post for weeks now, but I’ve had serious writer’s block for some reason. Well, not for “some reason.” I know exactly why I have been having such a hard time.

The problem is that I have so many words that I want to say, but I can’t say them. At least, I can’t say them just yet.

What I can say is that these past few months have been so unexpectedly wonderful. I’ve had to reevaluate some integral parts of my life, and that hasn’t been easy, but it has been worth it.

You know those things that you think you understand until you are challenged to view it in another way? Those are so difficult to really think through because you’ve never really had to before.

When I was younger, I thought of home as just being the trailer that I lived in. As I grew up, I began to realize that home was the feeling that I had in that trailer: being loved and accepted unconditionally. I lost that feeling for a very long time, though.

Once I started university, it began to dawn on me that NC State was my home. I had my advocacy work, my friends (especially Margaret, who has been there for me from the beginning), professors and faculty that I bonded with, my apartment… It began to finally feel like I actually belonged somewhere.

I still feel like NC State is my home. It’s where I live and feel safe, loved, and accepted. Recently, though, I’ve learned that there’s another aspect of it that I’d never experienced before, and I honestly don’t know how to put it into words.

I can remember the moment so clearly, as if it were just last night. It was the moment where everything fell into place, even the things that I thought already were.

In an instant, my definition of home changed.

Maybe one day I’ll be able to put that definition into words or into actions. Even though it aches for me to know exactly how I feel and what I think, and not be able to let it out, I hope that this small eternity lasts a lifetime.

 

I have some new ideas for blog posts, so look out for more advocacy-focused posts soon!

Someone helped me see that I need to learn to be vulnerable with people sometimes. Maybe the poetry written on scraps of paper and the haphazard playlist that I’ve created to help me smile on bad days will show up here someday. This is the song that I was listening to while I was writing this!

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