FINALS SURVIVAL part four: slow down

I've had this watch on my left wrist since spring break. It is now May 8th, and I'm positive that it will remain on throughout my whole month in nica. I tried taking it off a few weeks ago, and I literally couldn't. It felt too weird, my wrist felt vulnerable somehow. I think that is indicative of how much I hate change - even something little, like a stopwatch, being removed from my life makes me feel uncomfortable and I just don't like it. I just like when things stay the same.

Maybe that's why I'm such a sappy, sentimental person. I make a big deal of goodbyes. I am the type who thinks of things like "oh my gosh. this is the last time I'll eat a bagel at Bodo's on a Saturday morning of my second year" and then gets sad. It's the sort of thought like when things are good, they can't possibly get better, or that friendships can't possibly be maintained with distance and time factored in, or that the future can never be great because it isn't the same as the past. All those things are lies, but sometimes I think them and believe them - which is why exam season/the start of summer becomes a bitter-sweet time for me.

But then I had a mini-realization. I was driving to Greene two days ago and around this turn on 33 is this gorgeous scene of mountains. I mean, spectacular. It was my favorite time of day (around 6:30, the sun was really low and heavy) and the mountains were green and blue and soft, like you could go and embrace them. I literally wanted to stop my car and just stare at them. And then all of the sudden, those sad, sentimental thoughts crept in. I started thinking: this is probably the last time I'm going out to the school this year. I just finished my first full year as a leader. Next year will probably feel different. Some of the girls I've grown to love will be in college. My role on the team will be different. Everything about it will be different. This is the end of this part of the ride. Whoa.

And then I realized that I was so consumed by thoughts of things ending and fears for the next stage that I wasn't even thinking about those beautiful mountains in front of me. I was alternating in this weird space between past and future and was totally incapable to enjoying the moment. We do that a lot, right? I mean, people say "live in the moment" all the time - but it isn't something that is easy or even natural, I think.

The point of all that is to say that I'm learning the need I have to slow down. Exams are so strange, but also a pretty good picture of how I live a lot of times, being super consumed with recollections of the past and what that could mean for the future. I end up fearing things I don't know yet, fearing change, and that is silly. Someone wise once said that tomorrow will worry about itself.

What I want really is to enjoy things - like deep down, exactly as they are, in the second I experience them, enjoy things. When I first saw those mountains on 33, I just wanted to throw my hands in the air and thank God that they even exist, thank Him that I am walking around on this earth that is beautiful in more ways than I can fathom. That's how I should feel, all the time.

When I'm with people, I want to enjoy them. I want to talk to them for a long time and take our conversation slowly and just know them. I don't want to think about what happens with us tomorrow or over the summer or what we were in the past. I just want to love them, right there, fully.

When I am ending up the last few days of this year, I want to enjoy them. I don't want to be consumed by the thought that I only have 3 nights left in the Magnolia House, and think about all the good times and be sad that they are over. I just want to be right here, in these moments, throwing my hands in the air, happy that they exist and that I can have them fully and that greater things are coming. Because they are. I'm learning to rest in that.