{Change}

I started my education career in 1999 at the age of five & half. To me, that seems like forever ago. To other people, specifically my mom, it seems like not too long ago. Today, I had my last first day of school: I started the journey of what will be my final year in college.

1999- First Day on the bus in Kindergarten

Ever since we were little, my brother & sisters posed for the camera every first day of school so that Mom had documentation of how cute we were. The back pack sizes vary, some larger, some smaller. My parents should've taken stock out in Crayola with the amount of school supplies we bought every year. But somehow, at the end of each school year, came summer which lead into another school year. But for me, this was my last summer, summer. Before I take a hold of the big girl life, find a big girl job, & do big girl things.

2003- Madison (Kindergarten) Bailey (3rd Grade) Jordan (5th Grade)

I have mixed feelings about being a college senior. Mainly because I still look like a high school freshman, but because it doesn't seem too long ago that I was just starting college. I can remember starting my first day of 7th grade. I was so nervous. When 9th grade rolled around I spend the whole night before sitting in the bathroom sick to my stomach. The first night I had alone in my dorm room as a freshman in college, I cried myself to sleep because I was so scared. I can't tell you why I was scared, why I was nervous, but it is just something about change in a person's life that can jack up someone's anxiety level in a matter of minutes.

2002- First Day of 2nd Grade (note the broken finger)

Change is something that happens in everyone's lives. Change is inevitable. Nothing is ever the same. No situation can ever be repeated. No words that leave your lips can ever be taken back or go unheard. Change isn't something I have always accepted, my whole life I've resented change. I have just wanted things to stay the same. It is so hard for me to be away from the life that I knew growing up, with three of my four best friends from high school still living back in or around my hometown, it is hard for me to see them still getting to live the beautiful lives we started there. It is almost a jealousy that they see their families, that they get to see the streets we would cause mayhem on. But just like my life continued in a different state, at a different place, their loves continued on to new places, too.

May 2011- The Crescent Trio (Emily, Danielle, & I) with our 3rd, 4th, & 6th grade teacher, Mr. Ryan, several years later on his last day of school before retirement. Oh the memories we have.

I can look back through old pictures of elementary school, junior high school, high school. See pictures of speech tournaments, proms, homecomings. Remember the events of cross country trips & show choir competitions. There's picture after picture of me with my best friends. There's boyfriends after boyfriends. Halloween costumes & Christmas presents. Homecoming & prom courts. Football jersey Fridays. Birthday parties & hay-rack rides. Senior pictures. Elementary class promotions & high school graduations. I can remember feeling so grown up as I collected my high school diploma, but looking back now, I can only think of how young I was, how naive, how I was so sheltered from the world. Not to ever say any of this was bad. I was more than blessed with four fantastic best friends that were all over the scale in personalities & taste in boyfriends. My parents were nothing but supportive of my sports decisions. I had the opportunity to run on a cross country team with two of my sisters, & be in a competitive with my sister. Through all of my life experiences, I learned that change can be good. That change should be accepted.

2011- First day of 12th Grade

Just like hairstyles, & fashion trends, things come back, things stay locked in the vault of the past. You learn lessons as you grow older. Everything has a consequence, however, some maybe be bad, there is always the chance for a reward. 

It's funny, how at 18, when your car is loaded down with shoes & clothes ready to hit the highway to your new college adventure, you think you've got the world figured out. But once you're alone that night, you realize you forgot how to make friends because the ones you had were there since your elementary years, or take classes that have curriculum that blows way over your head but fight through anyways. Now that you've got a couple years under your belt, life has been experienced & you are finally comfortable with being an "adult" you find out that in nine short months, your life will once again change. 

August 2012- Headed off to college with my baby sister!

If I had decided to keep things the same,  then I wouldn't have some of the most interesting, compassionate, & fun people in my life. I wouldn't have been a college cheerleader or got to be elected Freshman Class senator or Vice President of the college concert choir. I would've missed out on falling in love with the study of speech communication theory. & never would have met some of the best social club sisters ever. Theta Psi, til I die!

Embrace the life that has been given to you. God will always make changes. Lately, He has made His way back into my life. He changed things so that the most important thing in my life would be Him.

August 27, 2014- The "first day of my Senior Year at York College" selfie

The plan that God has for you is greater than what you could come up with. Allow His changes. Let Him take the lead, & don't worry, you won't ever be alone.

Good luck to all of those students out there, from pre-K to graduate school! May you have a blessed school year!

Peace&love.

B.