I've always been someone who is consciously aware of when a big change is happening in my life. I hype myself up for it, and build this momentous occasion up in my mind as a big, huge deal--sometimes bigger than is actually warranted. It's what I did when I graduated high school, when I left home to attend school in PEI, and today, when I moved out of my parents' house and into a brand-new one in the city.
As per usual, so much build up beforehand leads to a slightly disappointing aftermath. Here I am, sitting in the basement of my new house, consciously aware that this is a huge step and the start of a new chapter of my life, and I feel...no different than I did yesterday. It's like back when I was a kid, and I spent all summer waiting for my birthday to come around, expecting to suddenly feel "grown up", or in some way different, when the day finally hit. But as it turns out, being 11 feels about the same as being 10.
I think I spend so much time building up to these events, the ones that I
know are supposed to be a big deal, that I forget that sometimes, the biggest events are the ones I don't notice. They're the ones that seem little, or even completely uneventful, at the time--only to show their true importance months later. It's kind of funny, actually, how one mundane event can change the course of your life forever.
Back in the ninth grade, for example. I had very few friends, none of whom attended my high school. I was the shy and quiet kid, who always had her nose in a book and spent her lunches alone, writing her own. I was lonely, yes, but not unhappy--just content.
I barely remember the day it happened--that's how mundane and ordinary it truly was. I don't remember the morning leading up to it, or what followed for the remainder of the afternoon. Those, I think, stayed the same, which is why I may have dismissed the event as truly important.
All I remember, really, is panic. Panic over walking into my English classroom, only to find that my teacher had rearranged the desks.
It's not that I was attached to my seat in question. I never spoke to the people around me, anyway, so really, it didn't matter. But at least before, it was routine. Now, with the desks arranged in groups of four, whose set would I complete? Whose group would I join, if I had spoken to no one?
It was a split second decision, really, as one only has so much time to stand in the doorway and stare before others start to question it. So, I picked a desk. I picked a group of three other girls, who I vaguely recognized from other classes.
I'm not kidding when I'm saying that that decision changed my life. Almost every friend I made in high school can be traced back to those original three, and I am so,
so grateful that I met them, and that they're still in my life now.
So yes, maybe what I'm going through now is supposed to be a big deal. Maybe it'll live up to the hype. Maybe it won't. I'm not sure what happens now, really. All I know is that there's bound to be another split-second decision to make, somewhere down the road.
It's scary. But I think I'm alright with that.
Until later,
- Justyne
