On Being Lonely but Brave

Call me naive, but I didn't expect the transition to New York to be this hard. In fact, I thought I'd be settled now, that I wouldn't miss my mom so much, that I'd feel like I have friends here, the kind of friends that became my family at Campbell.

But today marks 7 months since I landed here in New York City, and I spent most of Saturday night crying, and have spent pretty much every free moment since feeling like I want to.

I didn't expect to still miss my mom this much.

I didn't expect to be SO happy to be here and feel so out of place at the same time.

I didn't expect to know this is where I'm supposed to be and question what I'm doing here at the same time.

Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. You know I'm not one for giving up and throwing in the towel. I'm just lonely. I can go from feeling like normal and like I belong right where I am one second to loneliness and homesickness hitting me like a tidal wave the next.

This is why I was up on the phone so late with Mom Saturday night. I was crying, and I needed someone to process everything in my head and give me some perspective who would mind me calling them at midnight. Sometimes moms really can make everything better, you know?

She reminded me that I was just as excited, if not more thanks to the brain surgeries and all the high school bullying, to get to Campbell from Swansboro as I was to move to New York, and it wasn't until my last two years there that I felt like I had a solid group of friends. She reminded me that I called her crying more days than not my first semester. She reminded me that the bigger a city is, the more crowded and isolated it feels because you have less time with people because the people are busier. She reminded me that I have my church family (I reminded her that it's not that they're not incredible people, I just only get to see them for a couple hours once a week so I don't feel super close to them yet). She reminded me that I'm in a different world now, that this is a stepping stone between college and career, so it's possible that I may not feel totally settled until I have a full-time job that's actually in my field, but that's okay because there are only fourteen months until I graduate and can get that security.

She reminded me I can do anything for fourteen months. Her exact words that followed were, "You survived Swansboro High School for four years, and people were putting you through hell there. You can do this for fourteen months."

And she's right. The timing of all these feelings arising and hitting me so hard has just been weird for me to deal with because I got a letter from my friend Monique, basically the only person from high school other than Matt I have any desire to keep in contact with, at the beginning of last week. We've formed a pen pal friendship of sorts and I love it. Anyway, in that letter, she talked a lot about how brave I am for moving and how she didn't think she could do it and how I make this look so easy and I was just sort of like Whoa now. Hold up. I am not brave. This is terrifying. But while talking to Mom, I mentioned this, and she told me I am totally brave! Because I'm scared but I did this anyway. Because I never back down even when I'm scared, even in situations where I'm hesitant at first. And it reminded me of this quote...

I made the picture thing, but the quote is actually from the book/movie The Princess Diaries. Cheesy movies can be helpful every now and then. :)

So what do you say? Let's keep doing stuff that scares us, even when it's hard. Life is much more fun that way.