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It’s almost the end of high school and, the pressure is on.

It’s almost time to pick a college, and I’m stressing way more than I should.

I’m worried about not being picked at all, I’m worried about not picking the right place to go, I’m worried because this is my future and I don’t want to fuck it up.

Consciously or subconsciously I wanted a fresh start.

I wanted to have control over my own experience for once.

I knew this, and so my preparation for college was sooo intentional.

I didn’t want to go to the same college as anyone I went to high school with, only because they had known me pretty much all my life, and I was ready to be something else.

Home was safe, but still confining, I wondered who I would be, confronted with real world issues and having to make decisions without another authority present, no one on my back.

I didn’t know then that what I was practically begging for was to make semi-serious mistakes. To fall, scrape my knees, bust my ass, but still get up again.

I had 0 idea what to expect from life anymore, but I craved the taste of new, fresh experiences, unrelated to what has been, and a complete testimony to what may be to come.

The college I chose to go to is in South Jersey, not far from “home”, Virginia, and neither too close.

I chose it because they accepted me into a 3 year program where I could get my degree in 3 years instead of four, in hopes of saving my parents some money.

At the time, they both were alright financially.

My mother owned a business with my stepfather, and my dad was a General Manager (?) at a supermarket.

They paid my two first years of college practically out of pocket.

I say this because it plays an important part in the rest of the story.

But let me backtrack.

Before things got complicated, they were new.

I was now a freshman in college, alone, as alone as I could be, unprepared, and gravely so but receptive, and man did life get right to teaching me exactly what my soul needed to feel heard, but most importantly, purposeful.