Moving Forward and Leaving Behind

This has been my whole day.

This is my official last night in my apartment at College Station—this is the last post I'll write here in my cute little apartment. Yes, even with bare walls and boxes stacked on boxes, when I look around I still see my cute little apartment.

It's funny, it takes so long to make a place feel like your own. Then, in a matter of hours, it's all stripped bare again like you were never there.

It's bittersweet, moving out of this place. It's been a fantastic place to live while going to school down here. Bright, cheerful, and just the right size for a girl and her dog. But now that I've graduated, it's time to move on. Even though I know it's time to go, I'm still not happy about it. I've always had a hard time with change—even small changes make me anxious. Honestly, even positive changes make me uncomfortable, at least for a little while. I'm such a creature of habit, which I'm sure is the reason. But, at any rate, all this change has been hard for me.

My life, in boxes.

It's not just leaving this apartment—I've been so busy lately making a lot of changes, I'm kind of on overload. My inner self wants to curl up in a familiar place with familiar people and familiar things and rest, but that hasn't been in the cards lately.

Don't get me wrong, it's not all bad. In fact, actually, it's basically all good! The only "not good" would be my ability to handle change.


Still, it's all been positive. I'm the stick in the mud letting my mind linger on things, wallow in nostalgia, and wish that things could stay the same.

Art, off the wall.

It's funny how moving forward goes hand in hand with leaving behind. You can't really move forward without leaving something behind, and you definitely can't leave something behind unless you're moving forward. I guess it's all in how you look at life, and the things it throws your way. Me, I have a tendency to dwell on the Leaving Behind part. It's easier for me, because I already know about all that. That is, I know exactly what I'm leaving behind, whereas the "what's ahead" is such a mystery. What will it be like? Will I like it?

But I'm really trying to focus on the Moving Forward, and the excitement and anticipation of what comes next.

I have so much still ahead, and so many experiences on the horizon that are worth looking forward to. And no matter how scary the changes are, what kind of a life do you have if you sit stagnating because you're too afraid to step outside of your comfort zone and embrace life's possibilities?

My view right this second,
but with a trendy Instagram filter.

I know from experience that when you let yourself get too comfortable—no matter how easy it is—one day you wake up and realize you're stuck in a rut, unhappy, and wondering how life managed to slip by so fast.

So, to sum up this random introspective post—Goodbye, College Station! You've been good to me, Texas A&M has been great to me, and I'll miss you. But this is only the start, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

Even if I am nervous about what "next" might be.