And it's still so hard to be who you are, but you've come this far and you're broken...

This is something I've been wanting to write for a while, but I haven't...had the words. Until now.

I've been thinking a lot this summer about change.  Specifically, how much I've changed...in the past 4 years, the past year, the past 4 months.  

This summer has been really...different for me.  It was nothing that I expected, but it was, I think, a lot of things that I needed.  There was a time this summer when I was the lowest I've ever been.  I felt sad and hopeless and really, painfully alone.  I've never felt like that before.  I completely broke down...to my core.  Down to the foundation.  And when I got there, I stayed.  I didn't move.  I just sat still and surrounded myself by my complete and utter melancholy.  Despite all the people trying to give me comfort and support, I felt like I had no one.  No one could possibly understand.  No one could make it better.  I was empty.  

It's interesting, I think, how sometimes your worst moments can also be your best.  It wasn't until I was down there, at the bottom of my breakdown, feeling like no one cared about me and like no one could help, that I realized just how many people do care about me.  I'm usually a pretty closed off person.  I don't let people in to see my emotions.  But this time I did.  I let myself be completely vulnerable and exposed.  And it helped me to keep moving.  I started to build myself back up, brick by brick.  And as I sifted through the rubble of what was my life, I found pieces of the person I used to be.  It was like a restoration.  I kept the parts that worked and that were strong and good, but I left behind the pieces that I thought were bringing me down and tried to make something new and better in their place.  I'm a work in progress though.  Along the way, I've had my pitfalls.  I've lost a few bricks here and there, and I still am and probably still will for a while, but I'm getting there.  I'm moving forward, building up.  

I had a conversation recently about the person I am now, as I'm about to be a sophomore in college,  compared to the person I was at the start of my sophomore year in high school.  And it's strange...because...while my immediate response was to say that I'm a completely different person, the more I think about it, the more I realize that those two people are a lot more alike than I thought.  A lot has happened in the past 4 years.  I've had a lot of successes but also a lot of failures.  I've made and lost friends.  I had my first relationship...and my second, and my third.  I've had my first real heartbreak, and I've recovered from it - well, am recovering.  I've learned how to be myself and I've learned who I am.  I've also learned that I'm constantly changing and having to rediscover who I am...and I've learned to love the discovery.  I've cried myself to sleep.  I've cried until I had no tears left.  But I've also laughed until I cried.  I've moved out and back in.  I've learned to let go.  I've learned to live.  

And yet, through all of this, I find myself in a very familiar position.  I'm at a place of uncertainty.  I'm still not completely sure of what I'm doing.  I'm still getting used to this new part of my life.  I'm caught between two worlds: the home I've known forever and the new home I'm still trying to make for myself.  

I said at one point during high school that sohpomores really have no place.  You're not a freshman, so you don't get the free pass of being new, but you're also not an upperclassmen, so you don't really get the privilege of acting like you know what you're doing and like you own the place.  That might have been a little harsh, but what I'm trying to get at is the fact that at this point in my life, it feels a little bit like I'm in limbo.  I'm still trying to let go of my past and my old life while also figuring out my new life and my new place.  I'm stuck.

It's not a bad feeling though, necessarily.  It's kind of...exciting.  It's a chance for me to have a new start and figure out who I really want to be and what I want from life.  It's an adventure :)

Change is a funny thing. 

I wrote something a while back about ghosts...about how they remind you of who you were and show you who you are.  I want to add something to that now.  

At the time that I wrote that, the "ghosts" were reminding me of who I had been and helping me realize who I am, but now, I think they're guiding me to who I'm going to become.  (I know this sounds super hippie-trippy, but just go with me.)  

I'm constantly changing.  It never stops.  

But, I think what's different now is that I've finally figured out how to keep up :)  

Let me light up the sky, light it up for you.

There's no such things as shooting stars.
They don't exist.
They're meteoroids - pieces of cosmic debris that have entered the Earth's atmosphere...basically just rocks or parts of rock-like objects. Most meteoroids are smaller than a grain of sand. The path, the light that we see, the thing we call a "shooting star" is called a meteor.

It's not as...romantic or magical when you think about it that way. Who wants to wish on the light path of cosmic particle entering the Earth's atmosphere?

No, I prefer shooting stars. I'm sure it seems childish or naive, but I don't see any harm in believing in shooting stars and shooting star wishes.

It's kind of like faith, or at least, that's how I think of it. I don't mean religion, just faith. It's knowing that something doesn't make sense or acknowledging that something seems impossible but believing in it anyway, regardless of what makes sense, what's logical. I don't think there has to be a reason or an explanation for everything. I think there are certain things that should be able to ride just on faith, even if it's something silly that's just for the sake of magic and...whimsy, like shooting stars.

Everyone believes in something.
Some people believe in a lot of somethings.
I think I'm a person who believes in a lot of somethings. Some of them are silly...some of them aren't.
But I definitely believe in shooting stars...and shooting star wishes.

Carry on...you will always remember.

It's strange how a place can be so utterly unchanged and yet so completely different.

This past week, I returned to a place that represents what used to be a large part of my life. St. Mary of the Woods College, in Terre Haute, is where band camp was held 3 of the 4 years I was in the marching band in high school. Despite all the stigmas associated with it, band camp has always been a place of routine and structure: stretches in the morning, breakfast, march, lunch, free time, music rehearsals, march, dinner, march, etc. I know this schedule backwards and forwards. I spent one week every summer for 4 years following it.
When we got to St. Mary's, I was comforted to find that nothing had changed since I last saw it. The dorm, Le Fer, with its marble floors and high ceilings looked just how I remembered it as we climbed the 3 flights of marble stairs to the fourth floor, the same one where we stay every year. The conservatory was just as run-down and dimly lit as always and the practice rooms just as muggy and cluttered. Even the food was the same: tater tots at least twice during the week, the best salad bar in the world and a small, yet never disappointing ice cream selection.

It was all so familiar, so inviting and welcoming. It felt like going home again, back to a place where I know what I'm doing and I know who I am and where I belong...a place where everyone knows me, and I don't have to explain myself to anyone. But something was different. This year, rather than being one of the students, one of the band, I was there as staff, a marching and music instructor. I suddenly found myself in an entirely different position as I thought back to all the instructors I'd had throughout the years. They'd all seemed so much older than I was, and I admired them (most of them) and looked up to them and tried and failed to imagine being like them.

I've found that there are these rare moments in life when you're able to see yourself through the eyes of those around you, and it puts your life into a very different perspective.
This was one of those times.

As I went through the daily routine and walked (not marched) all over this campus that I know like the back of my hand, what I finally came to realize is that the thing that is different - the thing that has changed while everything has remained seemingly the same - is me. The person that I used to be, the one who knew what she was doing and who she was and where she belonged, that person is gone. That life is gone. The person I am now is so completely and indescribably different from that girl that it feels as if I never lived that life at all. It's as if I'm describing someone else's life, not my own. When I think about it, it's almost like I'm remembering it in the third person. And the fact is, I don't belong there any more, at least not in the same capacity. And I don't know who this person is, at least I don't fully understand yet.

It's a strange feeling when you realize you've lost a part of yourself. It's like that little piece has left your body and your mind, but then, when you return to those old, familiar places, it's still there, like a ghost of you...following you, haunting you. But not all ghosts are bad. Some are there to remind you of who you were and show you who you are. They help you to relive the past, the good times and the bad times, and see how far you've come.

That place, St. Mary's, and many others will always feel like home to me. It will always be a place where I can feel safe and wanted and secure. But if what they say is true (and I think it is), you can't go home again. You can visit, stay the weekend, but it will never be the same. It's now just a part of your past...my past. All I can do is be here, now, and know that this is where I belong. I'm going to live and enjoy my life now, in the present, so that when it becomes the past, I can know that the person who haunts all the places I now call home is every bit of the person I wanted to be. It's all that I can do, and it's exactly what I'm doing.