The past two months of my life have been like a blind man trying to solve a Rubix Cube: complicated. There have been so many ups and downs, unexpected turns, and even screeching halts. But, throughout all of these directions, I've learned more about myself than I have in the past 19 years I've been living.
As many of my readers know, I started my second year at Elon University this fall. I had planned on studying abroad in France the first few weeks of January and I was finally going to add an American Studies minor.
After two months into the school year, I had canceled my study abroad trip, I moved out of my old apartment into my current one and I had decided that I would be transferring to the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.
As you can see, a lot can happen in two months.
While there were many factors that led to me making that decision, the biggest was by far that I hadn't met "my people" yet, and I didn't feel like Elon could give me them. I needed a solid group of people that I could count on for anything and everything, people who understood me and could help me grow into a better person. And while a couple of my friends could do that for me, two people aren't enough to keep me at a school that I no longer want to be at.
I had visited UNCW when I helped my cousins move into their new apartment. Needless to say I fell in love with the school and the apartment complex. Most importantly, however, I fell in love with spending time with my cousins.
There are eight of us cousins total, but the six of us that live in North Carolina have a bond that is unmatchable. We often consider ourselves to be more like siblings than cousins; we argue, irritate each other, laugh until we cry, and always have each others backs. In many of our social media posts, we often put the hashtag "#mypeople", and it wasn't until I posted a picture of the six of us that I realized the group of people I had been looking for have been sitting right in front of me for my entire life.
Along with the decision to move, I had been battling my inner self for quite sometime. I hadn't been happy with the way that I looked, leading to unhealthy habits, and I hadn't felt happy for quite sometime. Not being able to feel like I could be happy is something rather unusual with me. I've always been a happy person, even if my "R.B.F." didn't show it. Being surrounded by people I hadn't truly connected with and stuck at a school where I didn't want to be, didn't help one bit.
At that time, not a lot was able to help me, other than talking to my family and listening to Thomas Rhett's "Life Changes" song on repeat. But since then, things have gotten a lot better. I've moved out of my old apartment, I have been accepted into UNCW and have made the arrangements to move, and--most importantly--I have started to love myself again.
None of this would've been possible without one simple thing: prayer.
As I've gotten older, my faith has gotten stronger and I've come to have a new sense of devotion to the Lord. Going through this tough time, I had to keep reminding myself that I was never alone. God was always with me, walking right beside me and when no one else could pick me up, He did. I remember praying before bed when I was younger, asking for little things and giving stereotypical thank-you's. When I pray now each night before I go to bed, I feel different. It wasn't something routine that I was "trained to do", it was something I had a desire to do. Prayer is something very simple, but my goodness is it powerful.
As you can see, just two months can drastically change your life a lot quicker than two years. Life throws you for a loop sometimes; ups, downs, sharp turns, even upside-down. The reminder that God is always with you and communicating with him can help you stay humble through the ups, will pick you back up through after the downs, relax you through the sharp turns, and will always put you right-side up after being upside-down.
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