I'm afraid of change. I am absolutely terrified. I get set in my ways, and I have my routines. Anything that changes that can set me off balance and mess with me in a real way. I try to avoid change as much as possible. At least, I used to. I would stay in the same dead end school I grew up in, and I would graduate and live my life. I had an opportunity to do something amazing, but I turned it down because it was new. It was a technical school 45 minutes away, and it was the best place for the career I wanted. It was all new people, though, and I didn't think it was worth it. At the very last minute, I changed my mind. It was the best thing I have ever done.
I decided to go to the far away school. I joined the criminal justice program. I arrived the first day, and I was the only one without a friend. Everyone else had someone they went to school with. I was all alone, and I was terrified. I was shy and anxious, but our teacher didn't want that. He wanted us to stop being scared of everything, and he would imprint that upon each of us until our last day. He wanted to make sure that none of us would go out into life and never be afraid of anything.
This school was like a dream come true. There was the glam of policing, but there was also the boring parts of it. We filled out countless police reports and tickets. It was tedious, and sometimes it made me wonder if it would be worth it. Every time I would doubt it my friends would be right there pushing me on. There was a dark and twisted humor that came with that class, and eventually, it was my home away from home. Half the time we wanted to fight the teacher, but we knew that he was only pushing us to be better.
Eventually, I made friends. It was a slow process, but once they were there, they never left. They became some of the most important people in my life. We had our grand fights and our long silences, but we always came back to each other. I left the program a year early because I was a senior, but it still changed my life. I was planning on going into graphic design. I was never good at it, but I tried because I didn't think I could do anything else. This program showed me that this was what I really wanted to do, and it gave me the chance to love it. It was so scary in the beginning, but in the end, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Now I don't fear change. I embrace it. I know that it may suck at first, but that it will help me in the end.
