This side.

"It's foreign on this side,

And I'll not leave my home again.

There's no place to hide

And I'm nothing but scared."

So, I'm all unpacked and settled in my new home. It's a nice neighborhood and I have a decent job that I'm starting tomorrow.

But I don't feel good.

Last week I left what I considered my home behind, something I always knew was going to happen. You can't just go to school forever - the point is to learn how to become a productive member of society with a job...and that's what I am now.

The hour when I need to be courageous and put behind my college days for good has finally come, and I'm scared. I feel so alone in this new role and I don't want to screw anything up. I wish I had a friend - any friend here to live with me and comfort me. But what choice do I ever have except to pull myself together and do what needs to be done? It's the only choice I've had for a long time now and I don't see a day coming soon where it will be any different.

I don't understand these feelings and I'm ashamed of them. But at least the path ahead is clear, even if it's dark.

I'll get used to this side.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for this side to become home again.

Over the bridge.

I wish I felt like I had a little more control over my own life.

Nevertheless, I am resigned to this path that seems chosen for me. It makes me feel a little awkward when people congratulate me on "my" success. My career and education are like a a body slide. If I try to slide off to the left or the right, I'm going to slip back into the middle and keep sliding down. So when people congratulate me on my new job and upcoming graduation, I feel like they're congratulating me for staying in the middle of the slide. It's not like they're doing anything wrong - quite the opposite, I appreciate the sentiment - it's just awkward for me, because I don't feel like I really worked for it at all. I've fought this path and lost. I put most of my effort into things that didn't work out. You won't hear anyone congratulating me on that!

Now I am coming to a bridge, much like the one I crossed six years ago. Back then I was a naive 18-year-old, scared to leave home but more scared not to, lonely and ignorant. Now I'm 24, confident and capable, anxious but unafraid. It feels a lot different than the last bridge. The last bridge's crossing felt like an escape, and though I didn't know what was coming, I knew it had to be better than what I came from. This bridge feels like the end of a long movie...a movie that I really, really enjoyed. Although I don't want the movie to end, I know it's over. There's no more plot, nowhere else for the movie to progress...it's over. The sequel looks promising, but I really don't know much about it at all...there's no promises that it will be better than this movie, or even that it will be as good. Life in this town was the movie. Life where I'm going is the sequel. This is the bridge I'm crossing.

I don't have any choice, so I'm going for it.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to put all bridges behind.

Railroaded.

"Maybe it's time to change...And leave it all behind! I've never been one to walk alone, I've always been scared to try. So why does it feel so wrong, to reach for something more...to wanna live a better life? What am I waiting for? 'Cause nothing stays the same. Maybe it's time to change."

I feel like many of the changes and choices I've made in the past year and a half were not my own. My career has never been my primary concern in life (perhaps a fault) but yet, in the past year and a half I've completely changed my career path, and made it a reality...almost effortlessly. I applied to a competitive program late and got in...two years later, I'm going to graduate. I passed both my major exams to become a counselor, with barely any effort. I've been getting congratulated on passing them, but honestly...I barely studied. How did I succeed?

Yet, the things I've put the most effort into the last six years have been mostly unsuccessful. The things I chose for myself, the things I wanted most were always out of reach. My career was always something off in the corner...a necessary burden. But yet, I've succeeded in that effortlessly.

It feels like a path has been chosen for me. Sometimes I wonder how I ended up where I am. It seems like just yesterday, I planned to ask my girlfriend to marry me within months, find a job in English, and keep in touch with all my friends...two and a half years later, I don't have any plans at all, but it looks like somehow I'm going to go off alone to a distant city to be a counselor with no plans to date anyone ever again. I could have never planned this. In fact, I didn't. This wasn't the plan at all, and I have done barely anything at all to push it this way. Quite the opposite. I've fought it every step of the way, laying down my own plans...good plans. I was very methodical, very intentional in everything I did. Yet here I am.

I accept this, now. I don't like it, but I accept it. My good friends tell me I should like it. I agree, I wish I could. I wish I could want what God apparently wants to give to me. But I don't. I don't yet understand or know how to want something that I don't really want. I'm just not there.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to unrail.

Turning the page.

Oddly enough, lately I've felt mostly at peace now with everything that's happened.

Resisting the downward spiral of relationships (both friendships and romantic-but-not-really) has proven futile, and even doing nothing about it all has proven to be a poor solution.

It's time to admit that the only way out is to leave.

In August, I will have been in this college town for six years. I will have two degrees and a lot of good memories and really bad ones, too. In August, I will be leaving.

I'll be leaving the same way I came in: only a few friends and lots of uncertainty, and little sanity.

Despite that, I think I've really become a stronger person. Although I am not in as good of a mental state as I used to be, I am much, much better at coping with things. The fact I am not now currently huddled in a corner crying and am instead feeling at peace with the world is a testament to this strength.

I don't want to divulge too much information lest I hurt someone's feelings, but recently I've been thinking that I've had a lot of people go in and out of my life repeatedly over the past year or so. To be honest, I'm not sure if I can or should keep putting up with that. I've mourned the loss of friendships only for them to come back, for me to get attached again, and for them to subsequently disappear and leave me alone. Every time it feels a lot worse. Should it not be time for me to say no? For me to turn the page of my story and move on?

I've been thinking that I ought to just let everything go and hold on to this peace I have until September. No trying to get friends back, no trying to make something work in my love life. I will move on and go somewhere where things might work better. This place was never the end all, be all. It was only a stepping stone...something I always knew but still denied. This place and these people were all just passing things.

Only a few more months, and then I'll be out of here.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to turn the page.