Have you ever gone to bed with that pit in your stomach? You know the one I am talking about. The one that comes every night as you lay in bed trying to get some sleep. The pit that says miss home. You miss sitting on a couch and watching T.V, you miss going up to a full and continually restored refrigerator, you miss your bed and your favorite pillow, and the warm soothing smells of home. Most of all though, you miss the people. That pit still hasn’t gone away for me. It comes nightly and keeps me awake frequently, burdening me tirelessly. I feel like the real me is buried deep in the past. I look at all the pictures on my wall of my family and my friends staring back at me with smiles and laughs, and thats when the tears always start. It sucks. What sucks worse is that I am always questioning whether or not I belong here. The pit at nighttime always makes me question that.
For those of you who are more than a quick trip away let me offer you some perspective that I have recently obtained after laying in my bed and shedding those few, but frequent nighttime tears many college girls are shedding right now. It really wouldn’t be different anywhere else. I mean sure you would be closer to home, you could go home on the weekends and visit your old high school and visit other friends who decided to stay closer to home. I realize though, sitting here sniffling hoping my roommate doesn’t hear me, if I did that, went back home I mean, I would just be running away from my problems.
So more about this annoying and unsettling pit. I have learned, just now, in this moment, that it is actually really truly beautiful. I know that might sound extremely weird and you’re probably thinking, “Ok, she’s not feeling what I am feeling, because if she was she so wouldn’t be saying that right now”, but I am and seriously it’s actually pretty fricken beautiful. That pit is telling you something, or at least its telling me something. It’s telling me that I am on a journey. It’s telling me I am being given a challenge. It is telling me that the training wheels are off and it’s time to learn some real nitty-gritty life lessons. That pit is telling me its time to start my journey. Mine. Yours. Its all mine and its all yours. I have a chance now to write my own story, to paint my own picture. That might be a tad bit corny, but its true! That pit is telling you that you have had an amazing life so far. You have memories that make you cry. You have people that you miss terribly. That is something beautiful. As hard as it is to turn the page on what was, it is also liberating. Liberating and extremely hard. Right now we are defining ourselves. College is the beginning of your solo act if you will. Start! Realize the pit is just a reminder of how wonderful your past has been, and also it’s telling you to get moving on your future. At least that is what my pit is telling me, what about yours?