don't stop this train

don't for a minute change the place you're in,

and don't think for a minute I couldn't ever understand.

I tried my hand, and John, honestly we'll never stop this train.

This is how I feel about life right now, as written by one of my favorite musicians, John Mayer.

I've just returned from and excellent fall break back home, and while I didn't really do a lot of anything, I realized a lot.

I've been home a lot since starting at a school where I knew not a single soul, 11 hours from home. Not once was one of those visits home because I hated school, or because I wasn't making any friends. Yes, I got homesick and yes there were days I felt lonely-but I knew going into this that I was going to have those sorts of days. I chose to embark on this journey though college all alone, far away from the life that I once knew.

You could say that I've pretty independent, I'm one of those girls that doesn't need to be surrounded by throngs of people to know that I am loved and have friends in this world. I guess that's part of what factored into my decision to go to school so far away, but my main reason was that I wanted to re-invent myself, I wanted to discover who I was, away from people whom I knew, away from the bad memories I had of high school, away from my 'friends.'

Now, I didn't really come here knowing what exactly I was going to discover about myself, or even what I was looking for. I think I saw college as the stereotypical 'fresh start' that most people see college as. And I grown so much since freshman year, however sometimes I feel like I'm getting nowhere, like I walking the wrong way on a one way street.

But, every once in a while things come together, and it makes life's journey really worth it. The first time this happened to me was the end of my senior year of high school, and the second time is right now. I'm not quite sure when this happened, but suddenly I feel like a different person, like I really know who I am starting to become.

In my many visits home I have always gone back to my high school, mostly because my mom works there, but I've gone back and visited nonetheless. And every visit I always feel like I return to the person that I was, not the person that I've worked so hard to become. I'm not quite sure why or even how this happens, nothing special occurs. But I still felt like I had been erasing all the hard work I've done over the past two years. However, with this last trip home, and subsequent trip back to high school, I felt like was truly myself, like I had really grown into my own shoes. I felt like the young adult I am, and not the 17 year old that graduated two years ago. I felt like I am really turning into someone, who knows who they are and what they want to do with their life.

I'm not sure what triggered this realization, but I feel like I'm actually making progress, and I am actually starting to feel confident in my life and who I am. For me, this is HUGE, but I can't quite pinpoint why. I've always been confident in myself and held strong to the decisions in my life, but this feels different. And I like it. So don't stop this train, I don't want to get off.