Prior to starting my first year of college I felt I had a grasp on who I was. Now, a year later, I think I may be going through a small identity crisis. This sounds overly dramatic but it resonates with me. An identity crisis is a feeling of unhappiness and confusion caused by uncertainty about what type of person one really is or what the true purpose of one’s life is. I am currently at one of many periods of uncertainty I assume I will encounter throughout my life. It is normal for anyone to question and change who they are.

Less than a year ago I identified myself as a fun and powerful young lady who is connected and vulnerable. I lost the confidence I once embodied about myself. Instead I feel I have become a boring and powerless vessel who feels alone and is afraid to take risks.

I used to be comfortable in the first outfit I chose for the day rather than change two seconds later after looking at myself in the mirror. I hesitate to speak with enough strength and volume in conversations because I fear I will be negatively judged by whoever I am talking to. I am too afraid to ask and state my needs in my relationships. I am no longer the one who initiates conversations with others. Instead I wait for a direct prompt from others to participate in a conversation. I lack the curiosity I once had in my class. I am reluctant to ask questions or answer a question I am asked. Most of the time I feel my life is pointless. I feel like I am just moving through the motions of the world rather than actually living my life. I am becoming someone I do not wish to be.

I lost sight of my self-awareness, but I recognize that I want to take back the power, fun, connection and vulnerability I forfeited. I want to feel free and comfortable with my body, express my thoughts and feelings without apprehension, and experience completely foreign feelings. I realize there is a list of risks, adventures and experiences I want to take to start living again. So far I have concluded that I want to: dance like I used to in the contemporary dance classes I took in high school, give my friends constructive feedback, go to a real college party, raise my hand in class with gusto, leave campus for fun on the weekends, make eye contact without hesitation, smile, train myself to be able to do complicated arm balances in my yoga practices, create a painted work of art, and fall in love for the first time.

I realize that it is not a detriment to be at an impasse in life. I think I am in the process of crossing into true adulthood. I am human. I experience, compute and respond to the changes in life. In a new and refined way, I want to become a powerful and fun adult who is connected and vulnerable. Adulthood is a new phase in my life and this change frightens me at times. Life is about experiencing new things and discovering who you are, and then constantly rediscovering who you are after that. Despite any lack of confidence, I may have at a given time, I am genuinely excited to experience what adulthood, or at least my early twenties, has to offer me.