I find myself walking. I don’t know for how long and I cannot be sure where I’m going, but it’s almost as though I’m searching for a feeling; searching for a life once lived. I’ll walk and walk and walk, never reaching fulfillment. I don’t know when everything changed or how it changed or even what the change was, but whatever is going on now feels simply incorrect.
I’ll scroll through the photos on my phone. The further back I get the more I wonder how it has been so long since then. I scroll faster through some sections than others not because I dislike the photos or the memories associated, but because they’re the best memories I have and I fear as though I’ll never feel as I did then ever again. Don’t get me wrong, I love the people I have come to know and I am incredibly grateful to be able to be here now. I only wish I could enjoy it to its greatest extent.
Only yesterday I graduated high school, only last week I applied to my first college, and only a couple of months ago did I get my driver's license. Time doesn’t feel real, everything around me feels fabricated, and I don’t know how to get back to where I was, when I felt present or when everything in my life felt perfect. I often bring myself back to the last couple weeks of my senior year. It was almost as if there was something completely foreign in the air, like a drug that made every experience infinitely better. From spirit days to nights on the beach to farewell parties, with each experience my happiness grew. Everyday I was on some sort of high, but in the back of my mind there was a clock, telling me–no, screaming at me--to remind me there was a time limit. I think the ticking got louder the closer we got to the end of summer until, finally, the time was up. The clock went off and everything went black.
I’m walking still. One foot in front of the other, stopping myself from breaking down with every step.
I don’t know how I got here and it doesn’t feel as though I should be here. I haven’t seen my friends in months, my small town’s old houses and winding roads have seemed to straighten themselves out, replaced with skyscrapers and a grid. I keep myself busy everyday, maintaining a routine that even my high school self should love. Get a coffee, walk, go to a thrift store, walk, maybe see a friend to distract me from my unrecognizable mind, walk some more.
Then there are moments when everything just feels too much. I sit in class, taking in experiences as they come until the walls seem to close in my brain and every task I have to do and every minute stressor in my life invades my head, clouding my thoughts. I can feel the stress somehow, sitting right behind my eyes, almost blurring my vision. The stress heightens--now stressing out over the amount of stress I’m feeling at once. I begin to bounce my foot, play with my rings, touch my bottom lip, produce any small physical stimulant in order to redirect the busyness in my head. This is one of those moments, so I walk, the coffee from earlier in hand.
Even from a young age, I remember being so afraid of getting older. I don’t know how I knew, but I understood the fact that I would never be as happy, as free, or as content in my life as I was in those years. Before going to middle school, I desperately feared leaving the place I’d known for so many years for something completely new. I’m not ready, I thought. When it came time to go to high school, I was in an extremely anxious period in my life and I could not have been more afraid. In fact, I remember my mom telling me after the fact that she said I would either sink or swim in high school. I swam, I soared. But nonetheless, Middle School Me told himself: I’m not ready.
With every milestone I told myself I’m not ready, not because I didn’t believe in myself, but out of fear of the moment being over and done with. The fear of getting older, having nothing to look forward to, of everything changing.
I reel myself back in for a moment. I blink the tears out of my eyes before they can fall. I turn up the music in my headphones to drown out these thoughts in my head that only induce more stress. Keeping my eyes on the ground as strangers pass, I can’t make eye contact as they’d probably be able to see that I am a mess. Arms crossed, my coffee now sitting behind my left elbow, the metal straw I keep in my tote bag laying against my elbow.
The metal straw and the tote bag, two of the only things that have seemed to stay consistent since the summer. My head begins to cloud again, trying to pinpoint when exactly I completely changed as a person; trying to recognize the me I remember, who is still living in me now. I am unable to tell if the crop tops and tight shirts I wear now and again reflect past me, growing into myself with my new freedoms, or if I was trying to become someone I’m not. Hair falling in my face, I begin to miss the brown I’d known all my life. It apparently didn’t take too long for me to miss it since dyeing it. My stomach growls, but I’m running low on money and I am approaching the thrift store, so I finish my coffee (they’re not allowed inside). Everything turns off for a moment. There are way too many people inside this store, but they replace the thoughts in my head, so it’s okay.
I walk out empty-handed again, since I didn’t really want to spend the money anyway. Resuming my walk, my brain, seemingly on autopilot, seeking to find where we left off. Metal straw… hair… can’t recognize myself. I’m too tired to continue. I look up, everyone carrying on with their lives, doing their own thing, seemingly content. The sun is out, I think I’ll be okay. Now all that’s left is to look forward to the summer again. Being able to drive to the beach way too often, to see my friends who I miss so dearly, to maybe become present once more. At least until the clock starts ticking again.
Alexander Navarro is a Film major at the School of Visual Arts. "This essay portrays my own personal struggle trying to adjust to college life," Alexander says.