Toys, CD's and past lives..

With each day that passes, we get older, things change, people change, we move forward with hopes in some cases of never looking back. While in other cases we don't want to leave, and want things to stay the same. The only thing is sometimes it takes losing or almost losing everything to make you realize what you have in your own back yard.
Cliche right?
In my case, I have been wanting to move out of my peaceful little town, leave my beautiful oceanic view, and comfortable home and see the world. Its been my dream forever, leave for university, come back on holidays, go back to school, come home for a week then jet set to some part of the world to live for a few months and teach while on summer break. Living a life of an international jet setter, see the world at eighteen and never look back at my days as a bullied kid. Only to look forward at the future and the listless possibilities for me.
As I pack my things and ready myself for this next chapter I am beginning to wonder, am I really capable of doing all of this? Just packing my things up at seventeen moving over one thousand miles away to a life I always thought I wanted? Or am I just a girl with pipe dreams, someone who is all talk and no action, all bark but no bite. Perhaps its like on those hot summers days as a kid, when we are so small and the lake is so big and cold, we want to be cool, refreshed and gain that ultimate relief from the heat that has been making us miserable but at the same time warm and safe. At some point we have to ask ourselves.
Do we really want to jump in?
The steadfast ones will say "Why the hell not", the thinkers will say "Perhaps", the ones who play life safe will say "I'll just walk into the water, take my time and enjoy it.. not need to rush something that's in my hands.".
But what will I say?
Will I jump in?
The preparation for school has been a summers worth of work, literally. I had a part time job at Zellers for a few weeks cleaning the clothing department, manning the fitting room, being nice to customers, helping them find stuff. I enjoyed my time there to a point.
I bought my school supplies, clothes, shoes, even two hats which I now feel naked without.
I've prepared physically too, I have been working out, doing exercises daily, I feel awesome physically.
Mentally?
Yoga is my relief t the on going anxiety battle within me.

One of the most powerful and quitessential forms of exercise that requires intense mental concentration. When practiced correctly and concentrating on breathing, yoga increases flexibility, muscle definition, endurance, and mental clarity.

 Says the urban dictionary, as a definition for the series of movements that tone my body and mind. 

I have never been one to not be ready for something, when I went to Washington DC several years ago to study the Holocaust I packed and repacked for weeks. My bags were always ready in the case of an earlier flight arrangement. Because this was temporary, this was a week there and I'd be home again. 

Now most university students call their dorm their second home, especially in my dorm. I am going to be living in my campuses family kind of place, Holy Cross House is a family like no other group of students its a very close knit group and is known all over both the St Thomas and UNB campus. 

But I am the girl who never really had a home to begin with, not literally but like I have never been one to hang out with girls, I've either been on my own or hanging out with guys because I'm (despite my love of shoes and fashion) a tomboy. 

I'm also not one to share my room, never have. 

Now I'm expected to co habituate with some girl I never met, some girl who could be my worst nightmare. Like I don't even know her. 

I'm scared shitless, and add to the fact I have to settle into my dorm two days prior to my roommate, leave all of my stuff there for her to pick at while I go to a three day track camp. Which I have finally decided to go to. 

Maybe I am just scared to even go, or maybe I'm not ready. 

I've had months to prepare, today I am going to St John's International to book my flight and this time next week I will more than likely be at my orientation at STU (I have no idea what time it starts, but I'll probably be told upon arrival).

I'm not running away from the fact I'm leaving, sure I have been procrastinating about packing, who wouldn't in the case of leaving home for the first time. I am bringing my Tigger plushie with me, the purple pillow I've had since I was a toddler and my Tokio Hotel cd's that got me through my hardest struggles in life. These simple things, these bits of my past lives, these things that together hold me in one piece as I journey into the unknown. 

Now I don't plan on crying at the airport. That's one thing I plan on avoiding, a teary scene at the airport at six am on a Thursday morning while most normal people are sleeping I'll be anxiously awaiting my flight to Halifax and then Fredricton followed by a cab ride to school. I don't plan on crying. 

Nora Katrone never cried when she was leaving Germany and leaving behind everything she had known. So I am not crying now. 

If I cry it will be regret, and taking the first steps into my new life beyond high school are something that I should not cry over. 

I should smile!

I did this for me! I worked so hard too!

So this regret stuff, this whole I'm not ready, sure I am insecure (what girl isn't at my age) but we can't all just hide in our childhood bedrooms forever. 

So why not take pieces of our childhood with us, be it a plushie, an old cd or even a photograph of someone we used to be. Eventually we will come to terms with the fact that that is the past and this is now but until we do lets hold fast to the things that helped us get to where we are today. 

I'm not saying lets drag our mommies and daddies with us to school as if we were in preschool again and are afraid to let go of their hands or let them out of our sights. (I wasn't one of those kids surprisingly, I was actually quoted by several of my friend's parents as to saying 'Mommy I know where you live you can go home now' which is ironic because I am scared to leave this home now almost fourteen years later) 

I'm saying let's hold tight to our past while making headway with our futures, listen to old CDs while we write our term papers, call our parents once and a while from the campus gym (I'm one of those annoying girls who is found at the gym on her phone) Lets not forget who we were in the past but lets not also get lost between who we were and who we are going to be. 

It's time to be a balance of both. 

Time to kiss goodbye the past, and welcome the new day.