Too often, I find myself wondering "Why?" Why aren't my grades exceptional? Why don't I have more on-campus involvement? Why do I always mess up at my job? Why is my love life on a 6 year epic spiral downward?

Why am I even here?

I want to be clear that the question, "Why am I here?" does not have to be a frightening one. It doesn't have to be a foreshadowing or clue into suicidal thinking. I actually think it can work as exactly the opposite.

It's healthy - to certain extents - to wonder about and explore your life's purpose. If you didn't, your life would be full of complacency and remain stationary for the remainder. You would become content with where you were and never desire something bigger, greater, and better.

I grew up in a relatively small town in North Alabama. I went to school with the same people from the time that I was 4 years old all the way up until I graduated high school. I did ballet, I was on danceline and did band, and up until about the 9th grade, I hung out with the same people.

I reached a point, after my first boyfriend and I broke up, that I was just sick of the same old thing and the same people. Not that I didn't love them, just that I was tired of this ritual that I had gotten into. So I made tons of new friends and I mean anybody that would talk to me or return a text, we were the best of friends in the next few weeks. This was wonderful. I was almost never alone, my mind was always occupied with what we were doing or what was going on in their life, but most of all, I was happy living a free and single life. I enjoyed galavanting around this small town with all of these people, creating fun where it didn't previously exist, and living life with no sense of what time it was or who I had to answer to for it. (Sorry mom and dad).

In the weeks leading up to graduation, everyone around me was extremely nostalgic and there were lots of tears. Everything was the "last thing of it's kind that we'll experience together."

I was sad and lethargic but in a different way. I was frustrated. I was trapped in a small town that of course I loved, but I was ready to break that border and see everything else that was out there. I counted down the days until I walked across the stage, had the best summer of my life, and then moved to college. Granted, my chosen college was only an hour away, but very few people that I knew selected the same college. And it was a new place, a new routine, new friends, and a new home.

Now, while I wish that I could say that my transition from home to college was easy, I would be lying. I had homesickness and I texted my friends from home incessantly. I knew and loved my roommate and that's all I'd let myself do. I woke up (probably around noon) one day, and decided that I'd had enough of this rut. It's like I had tried to jump across this big gap from home to college but hadn't quite made it. I was hanging on the edge, with one foot still clinging to home and my hands hanging on to college.

Nostalgia is such a strange feeling. It evokes emotions that aren't quite sad but aren't exactly happy either. It's this feeling of longing. And I have never known how to put it into words, but as of recent, I have discovered that nostalgia can be a beautiful reminiscing of the past, or it can be a detriment to your mental wellness. Not because it's bad to look back, but because sometimes when we aren't thrilled about where we are, we try to live in what was instead of what is. What a disappointing perspective; to look back on what are - at the moment - the happiest times of your life with no way to get back there.

Once I decided to make the leap, I made so many friends. I dove head first into every organization and club I could try out/audition/try and be in. And some of them crashed and burned, but even when they did, the momentary hurt I felt was nothing compared to the pure joy of progress that I felt. Because I was moving. I was changing. I was doing something different.

I say this now, but at the time, I felt maladjusted. I just couldn't find my niche or my place on this campus. But by spring semester, I'd found my people. I'd found my place. I'd found my happiness. I did everything I could to stick to that. I wanted everything to stay just the way that it was because I felt good for the first time since I'd moved here.

But first semester of my junior year, I got sick of the routine. I changed jobs, started going out more during the day to explore the city I lived in and took new routes to do it. I hung out with different people and tried new music, movies, cities, and places. Now I'm in my second semester, and more has changed than I could ever imagine. My friendships have suffered and some have blossomed. I have had romantic relationships start and then stop just as quickly. I have spent innumerable hours crying a week because I can't grasp statistics concepts or sometimes just because I feel lonely.

But I look back on the last 3 years, and I can have hope because it's all going to be okay. It is okay to hate your major halfway through college and decide to change it. It is okay to go see movies alone. It is okay to end friendships and relationships that are no longer spiritually, emotionally, or mentally beneficial to you. It is okay to hurt over those things. It is okay to feel broken over a fallen relationship.

And it is okay to not rush through those feelings.

The only thing worse than feeling broken is people trying to shove you through to the end. Of course, there is a light at the end of this tunnel. Of course there is a greater plan for your life than what is hurting at this moment. And of course, things will eventually work out and be restored. But right now, you don't see that and you need to know that it's okay.

The most transformative and healing times in my life are when I stop trying to distract myself from the hurt that I feel, but really give myself time to process and feel through it. Self-discovery is immanent in times of pain. You will learn more about your strength, your will-power, and all that your mind and body can endure if you give yourself the time to explore it.

Of course, being happy with where you is a wonderful thing, but I've found recently that the sort of "happiness" that applies here should be a temporary resting place, as you regroup and prepare for the remainder of your journey.

See, I've always kind of scoffed at the saying, "Happiness is a journey, not a destination" until I started to experience first-hand exactly what it meant. And let me try and break down, at least a little bit, of why I think we should use the term "happiness" extremely loosely when talking about what we are searching for in life:

Happiness is a fleeting emotion; just as sadness, anger, jealousy, excitement, etc... If you search for these feelings as a way to live or as an emotional occupation, you will be searching until the day that you die. And not only will you be searching, you will be constantly disappointed when you reach a point of happiness and then it escapes you.

So let me encourage anyone who reads this not to search for happiness, but to search for joy; a deep-rooted, soul-level, lasting-even-in-the-bad-times, joy. You should want the type of joy that gives you hope even in the darkest moments of your life and the type of joy that not even the strongest of forces can take from you.

If it takes traveling, then get in a car and drive or hop on a plane to your dream destination. If it takes a week of camping and leaving your phone behind or just sometime where you spend some time alone reading books or listening to music; do that. Take the time that you have to experience life at it's fullest. Work and school can wait when it comes to bettering yourself and experiencing a world that is so much bigger than what you have going on right now.

Be brave. Stay humble. Learn from every success and every failure. Love everyone around you. Make the life you're living worth more than settled complacency. Never stop moving. Never stop growing. Never stop learning.

Everything is going to be okay.