Letting Life Be
This post was published on February 13, 2017 on my old blog, samplesizedwriting.wordpress.com
All throughout winter break, I had high hopes for second semester. It appeared that my class schedule wasn’t going to be as heavy or torturous, aspects of my social life were looking up, I was looking forward to getting my newfound independence back (sorry, Mom), and I was even looking forward to the good ol’ Syracuse snow I was so often told about. I get back, settle back into my SU home, and the first few days are fine.
Just the first few days.
My personal life started taking a dive literally the first weekend back, and shortly afterwards I was also totally overwhelmed with the amount of schoolwork that I was looking at for the semester. Since then, it’s just been a snowball effect. Or, it would have been, if there was any snow. Seriously, the snowiest city in the United States had almost no snow on the ground this whole first month back! So, social life went downhill, class schedule felt just as heavy as last semester, and there wasn’t even snow. But hey, at least I had my independence.
After feeling progressively worse as the weeks went by, it all came to a head last Sunday, where I just had so much stress pressing in on me from all sides for all sorts of reasons that I just sort of sat and cried for an hour. I felt incredibly low. I continued to feel pretty low for almost all of last week, until I heard someone speak on Thursday night about how sometimes you just have to stop trying to control things and let life come. Sometimes you just have to let God or fate or whatever controls what’s going on down on Earth to just have control.
That really hit me. I realized that I had so much hope and such high expectations for this semester that having them veer so wildly off course didn’t just suck, it really, really hurt. Since trying to keep it together and trying to make things happen (or prevent things from happening) wasn’t really working and I was fighting God or fate or what have you, I decided that maybe I should just let what happens, happen. Maybe all these bad things were happening for a reason, or maybe they weren’t, but since I seemed to be having such a hard time keeping myself on track, it might be time to let someone or something else have a go at it.
I kid you not, since I decided to just let things happen, I’ve been so much happier. I had a really fantastic last few days. I turned 19 this past Friday, and as it was my first birthday away from friends and family I didn’t expect anything amazing. I hoped for a few phone calls, a few texts, and some hangout time with my Syracuse friends, and I just figured that the day will go how it’ll go. Rather than just a chill birthday, my roommate brought me a nice lunch to work, decorated my whole side of our dorm room, and planned a surprise birthday dinner for me with a whole bunch of our friends. Genuinely one of the nicest birthdays I’ve had, so thank you for that, Nicole.
The rest of the weekend was just as amazing and fun, as I was able to get all dressed up for a Women’s Appreciation Dinner (ladies, you all looked fabulous, and guys, dinner was great. Who knew you all could cook?), hang out and chat with a few good friends on multiple occasions, and it even snowed! More than once!
And because of the snow, I got to help my roommate make her first snowmen (or snow-people, as one was a lady) and have a semi-decent snowball fight. Truly a great time. The stress I’ve been having socially has decreased, as some things are coming together and other things, well, I’m just dealing with and accepting. The academic stress has fallen away slightly as I’ve realized not everything will go as planned, but life has a funny way of making some things work out anyways.
It’s true, it’s only been about four days since I’ve decided to relinquish some control and let fate do whatever it’s trying to do, but those four days have been pretty good, and my mental and emotional states are way better than they’ve been for a few weeks now. Maybe it’s just a fluke, but maybe something in this universe is just trying to guide me someplace I’m unaware of right now, and it just needs me to allow it to do its’ thing. So far, I’m happier because of it. Now, I’m not saying that if you’re having a rough time right now too, you should just simply throw your hands up and say, “Screw it, life’ll take care of itself,” because I’m not doing that. I’m simply saying that maybe if you’re having a difficult time with something, instead of feeling sorry for yourself and thinking everything is terrible, consider that maybe life is just trying to nudge you in a different direction or that everything will lead to something better. You’ve just got to accept what’s going on now, and just let God or fate or whatever you believe helps control your life do what they’re trying to do.
Above all, know that things will be okay again, even if they aren’t okay right now. Like I said, life has a funny way of working itself out. It just might take a little time.