Going Through the Post College Transition

For the first time in my life, I have literally nothing to do. Wait, let me explain. Ever since I started college four years ago, I have always been doing or planning, meticulously at that, my next steps. You have no idea how many google docs I wrote up with classes I was interested in taking for the next semester, club positions I was excited to run for, and other activities to enhance my future medical school application. Yeah…I was that girl.

In college, summers for me consisted of some type of schooling. The summer before my freshman year, I had participated in an early college program at my University and each summer after that, I have taken classes. Sometimes I got lucky and ended up studying in Paris or Spain! Nevertheless, I was always in school or in some workshop to sharpen some skill of mine.

This April I graduated from my university. With tears in the corners of my eyes, I walked the stage right behind one of my first and very best friends (heyyy, Bianca), and received my “diploma.” Though school is not even close to being complete for me, stay tuned for where I am heading to graduate school mid-June, for some reason, I feel overwhelmed with the amount of heaviness in my chest that I feel in this moment in my life.

You see, I went to college out-of-state, 500 miles away to be exact. For the past four years, I have lived in a very different world than I grew up in. In fact, the girl that left my hometown four years ago is not the girl who returned this April. Now that I am back for a short while, I am not sure how I feel about my next steps. Proud, yes ( I definitely worked my booty off to get into graduate school), but excited for the future…I am not so sure, yet.

For once in my life, I am sitting on my couch looking at my 53,828th google doc titled, “Post-Graduation Plan” and I sit apprehensively to even write down the prestigious university that gave me a chance to start my graduate studies in medical physiology. What is wrong with me? I worked my tail off studying for the MCAT while I was in school and applying to graduate schools to get to this very moment where I could confidently write down my next educational adventure. Yet, I feel heavy.

Have you ever felt this way? Have you ever gotten so comfortable with just knowing the next steps, your foot easily going right in front of the other, that when it is time to leap, something in you just holds you down as if you were wearing ten-pound ankle weights?

Some may call it fear, others will say, “Oh honey, that is normal.” Whatever it is, just know that you are not alone. I feel it, too. But I hope you know that you have got to stop selling yourself short. You have got to stop being so caught up in what everyone else’s expectations are of you that you forget what exactly you just accomplished in your life. You can not sit here and wait for someone to give you some gold star or a green check mark in life to do what it is you want to do. If you are waiting on the world to validate you, you will be waiting forever and be very disappointed. This moment is about you and your leap of faith, no one elses.

Transition is hard, for everyone. And for those of us who don’t like change, it can be even harder. But imagine if for once, in the midst of your chaos and heaviness, you took a step back and looked at how far you have come. Truly, think about where you started. Now think about what those ten-pound waits could be that seem to hold you down. Is it depression? A past relationship? Emotional insecurity? Fear of failure? Maybe, all at once?

Whatever it is, as you transition into this new stage in your life, please be gentle with yourself and remember that you, too, are not who you were four years ago. “You have to leave heavy things behind so you can carry better things forward.” You of all people know how much you have gone through to get to where you are. Now is not the time to be critical. Now is not the time to worry yourself with fear. Now is not the time to analyze the past. However, it is the time to check in with yourself, to congratulate yourself, to encourage yourself, to love yourself, to organize yourself, and most importantly, to get in tune with the next version of you. Feed your heart, soul, mind, and body with the things that bring you peace and let go of those that don’t so you can make that next leap.

You are blessed, brilliant, beautiful…and becoming.