I have always been someone who, for whatever reason, is drawn to the idea of being a success. This may sound silly, because who doesn’t want to have success and all the privileges that it grants you. But I stand apart not only as someone who just wants success, but who demands it of myself. I am horrified to find myself in the last place, and only somewhat willing to be happy with second or third. Even when I just don’t have the skill set to excel at whatever challenge is placed in front of me, I still put a ton of pressure on myself to perform as though I do. Partially because of this, I was only 16 when I graduated from high school by obtaining my GED in a crowded classroom full of adults trying to make up for lost time and a few teenagers like me who had no concept of that struggle yet. When they mailed me my diploma, a letter came with it saying that because of my score I had been granted a $2,000 renewable scholarship at Wright State University for four years, should I choose to attend there. I was anxious and overwhelmed but also delighted with the praise I received and any positive sign that I wasn’t about to take a huge leap that would end in a disastrous freefall. I contacted Wright State, deferred the scholarship until such time as I would show up there, and enrolled in community college to start on my Gen Eds.

For those three years before university, I knew exactly what I was working towards. Although I changed my major, changed my career plans, and changed my mind on a hundred different things I had thought I was so sure about going in, one thing remained the same. I knew where I was heading. I would finish up the majority of my Gen Eds at community college and, when I felt ready, I would transfer to the university of my choice, most likely Wright State. I knew the plan and although I went through rough patches and times when I doubted myself or lacked motivation, overall I knew what I was pushing towards and that gave me some solid ground to stand on. While most of my friends picked out prom dresses and took their ACTs, I worked towards my future at an accelerated pace and secretly allowed myself to feel a tiny bit superior.

In the spring of 2014, however, as I watched my friends walk down the aisle to their futures, high school diplomas in hand, their accomplishments and plans for college being read out like prophecies of inevitable future successes by the master of ceremonies, I wondered if I had made a mistake. Standing in the audience in my high heels and pink flowered dress, listening to those who took the path more traveled by and wondering if I should have joined them, I found myself thinking, “Man, where am I even heading towards?”

Now I find two years later, at a much different phase of my life, that thought has come back to haunt me.

When I first transferred to Wright State in the fall of 2015, I was filled with an unquenchable sense of excitement and purpose. I hummed with energy, exuded it like a searchlight, illuminating every one and everything I saw with my own swift and sure beam of highly concentrated expectations until the whole world seemed as though it was reflecting my own positivity. For once I felt as though I had figured something big out, as though I had made a crucial decision that was, for sure and for certain, the right one to make.

Don’t get me wrong, my time at Wright State so far has genuinely changed my life and I wouldn’t trade one minute of it. (Well, maybe a few moments in early morning classes, but that’s beside the point.) I’ve not only had a wonderful experience here and felt more supported than I ever would have dreamed, but I’ve also been very lucky and fortunate to find and obtain opportunities that help me round out my skill sets and create new ones. In many ways, all the hopeful expectations I had at the beginning of my time at Wright State have been fulfilled in more ways than I could have bargained for.

And yet, in spite of all of this, I find myself slowly slipping into a different phase of college life, something that makes me feel as though my once structured life plan is starting to rip apart at the seams. I feel a little lost, a bit untethered, like I’m in some sort of limbo state.

This isn’t anyone’s fault, and it’s not based on any one thing. It’s just that right now, as an upperclassman a mere two semesters and some change away from graduating, I feel a bit out at sea, caught somewhere between real adulthood and the warm cradle of higher education. I have many adult responsibilities, but at this point I have no idea how those adult responsibilities will translate directly into a job after graduation. I want to feel like I have some control of my life and where it’s heading but I also want to climb into a pillow fort and watch "Tangled" and eat caramel corn until I feel less overwhelmed. I feel like I’ve worked really hard and bent over backwards to get where I am right now, but I also feel like I have miles left to go before I sleep and I’m not too sure where I’ll be when I get the chance to rest.

This leaves me feeling a bit confused and bruised, wondering if I’m even going the right way as I blaze my path, hacking away at obstacles blindly, hoping not to whack my own arm off in the process. It’s an impossible problem, this need for stability contrasted with the huge transitional period that is my life right now, and yet I still find myself searching for ways to tie myself down to something solid. I know I have hopes and dreams and secret wishes for how things will go, but I know from personal experience that life very rarely happens the way you plan it in your head, and everything is so up in the air I don’t feel comfortable sharing my hopes with those around me. I know of at least three jobs I’d like, but I don’t know if I’d be able to get them. I have a potential contact, but it all depends on how that one thing goes. I want to try to do this, but first I need to do this and this and this. I know where I want to go but how I’m going to get there is more than a little fuzzy now and its starting to get frustrating.

I am tantalizingly close. I can see it coming up in my sights. It’s there now, what I want, somewhere, I’m sure of it. I can smell it in the air. Around the next bend, over the next hill, hidden underneath the dirt beneath my shoes somewhere, the future I want, the life I’ve worked so hard for over the last four years, is waiting, crouching, there for me to grasp and hang onto for dear life. But I’m not there yet. I’m still just keeping my head above water in the sea of change that has been my life for the last year, grabbing on to any buoy I can reach to keep myself treading water. I’d be lying to say that isn’t frustrating at times, but it’s also humbling and has taught me a lot about things like patience and hard work and paying it forward. I want to be crossing the finish line, but the fact is I’m still lacing up my shoes before the race, and I’m ever so slowly learning how to accept that.

College has been a wonderful experience for me, where I’ve learned about myself and others and the life I want to lead. I’m not quite ready for it to be over. I want to experience all I can here, try to leave it better than I found it, make a difference, leave a mark, make someone as happy as I am to be here. As much as I sometimes tell myself I need to go from 60 to a 100, the fact of the matter is, I am still somewhere between 0 and 1, trying to figure out my trajectory, trying to single out my objectives and learn how to move. I know I’m going places, but for right now, I’m still here, and even though there are days when I wish I could be somewhere else for a moment, over all, I know I’m not finished at Wright State. I have things to do here, I have people to meet, lessons to learn, skills to acquire, respect to earn. Of all the things I've learned in college, this ability appreciate where I am for all the beauty it has instead of looking forward to an imaginary perfect future is one of the greatest skills I've acquired. For once this perfectionist has learned how to say, here’s to being somewhere in the middle, especially if the middle is somewhere I feel so lucky to be.