My life is a beautiful adventure that God intended for me to live out to the fullest, remembering that every day is a gift and should not be taken for granted.
Occasionally there are those moments that rock the entire foundation of where we thought we would be come this time of year. As I look back and reflect on the past three months that seem to have just whisked by in the blink of an eye, I am reminded that life always has curve balls to throw. From breaking my back in a car accident, to the immense stress that seems to be mounting with my senior service project and the inexpressible need to figure out where I am going next year, I realize that I am completely not seeing what I am missing.
Although traffic court is not something that ever would have made it on my bucket list for this year, it is by no fault but my own that I had to encounter the hours-long expenditure that is waiting for your name to be called. Yet, while sitting there (with my extremely patient, loving mother) I was given a gift: the gift of thought. It has been eight weeks since that fateful day that ended with my removal from the championship swim season, but as I sat there in that cramped, smelly court waiting room I realized that it was time to fully come to terms with the lesson I was supposed to learn.
High school is coming to a close and as the spectrum of my life rolls by I am reminded that my carelessness has left hurt and pain in its wake. Not all of these instances are super obvious or able to be seen by observers from the outside. I believe most people consider me to be a pretty well-rounded, organized person, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty aspects, in all reality I’m a literal mess. Up until today I was afraid of that. I was afraid of letting people know that I don’t have it all together and I realized today (while sitting in that seat of anticipation) that I need to work on not letting the people around me define my life and who I am supposed to be. Carelessness is unacceptable and I need to be making more conscious decisions when it comes to choosing what actions I act upon in my life. It all stems from my insecurity when it comes to who I am. Too long, that’s how long it has been since I have let myself be truly free and individually myself around the peers I have long called schoolmates. So with less than two months left, and the possibility that I may never see any of these hooligans again, I vow to be dorkily, uniquely, passionately, irrevocably, beautifully, carefully, truly me.
Traffic court, shockingly, held a significant lesson, that I was not expecting to encounter. Although some intense things may erupt in its inner being, it shows that sometimes it takes a serious reality check to snap people out of their delusional, perhaps unintentional, lives, and I am proof of that.
