KELLY DAVIES
Staff Writer
I was at dinner with some friends the other night, one of whom will graduate this spring. We talked about our majors, possible jobs and the future, and we said it feels like only yesterday we had our eighth-grade graduation.
We joked about what we were like in middle school, and all of them had some funny things to say. But none of them as painfully un-funny as mine.
You see, I went through some major changes when I was younger. I was the kid you knew who wore t-shirts with wild animals printed on them in all sorts of bizarre colors. I wore them proudly.
I had them all: the shirts emblazed with three wolves behind a moon, the green frogs in a rainforest, and even the cats dressed in hats that had purses around their front paws. Shudder. I was chubby, I had frizzy curls and braces, and I rocked.
Somehow, by the grace of God, things began to change. Over time, I learned to brush my hair. I ditched the shirts and found a little confidence. Before I knew it, some big changes happened. Time flies, and I’m glad I didn’t spend it criticizing myself or hating my body.
I might not have known I was awkward, but it wouldn’t have made much of a difference if I did. I accepted my circumstances and went on my merry way. Slowly I grew up.
So why are we so hard on ourselves now that we are “grown up?” It seems that we put an enormous amount of pressure on ourselves to know what we want immediately. But when I was an awkward chubby kid, I didn’t know what I wanted right away, and that was OK. I mean, I didn’t pick up on the fact that maybe the clothing choice wasn’t a good one, but hey, it’s part of growing up.
So now it’s fall. We’ve been in class for more than a month now. It’s scary for a lot of us that maybe our majors aren’t the right choice. That’s a big deal when you’re looking at your major as a possible career. Naturally, that comes with a lot of anxiety. But about what?
I’ve come to realize from experience, the anxiety is about change. We fear it on some level because that means changing the things to which we’ve become accustomed. We picture our lives taking a drastic turn, and we’re never the same.
But change is gradual. When I switched my major from theater to broadcast news, I thought my little security blanket had been torn from my arms. But it wasn’t. I simply stepped into a new role, and the world became a stage for all sorts of different and exciting things.
My friends also changed their majors — one from accounting to public relations, the other from business to liberal arts. Those are pretty drastic changes, but the people are the same. It’s the growth in our lives that takes time, if we’re open to it.
I look back on middle school, and I don’t see that toothy girl with whom you didn’t want to play spin-the-bottle. I see a girl who was ready for change and open to its infinite possibilities. Sometimes I think I know it all now that I’m grown up. But I’ve found that maybe I knew what really matters when I was 13. Funny how that happens.
10-06-2005