I’m Not Behind. I Just Started Late.

I entered college on academic probation. 

Ain’t that some shit? Crazy, right? 

Not only did I enter college on academic probation, but I selected my major…late. I spent an extra year in school due to playing “catch-up”. It resulted in me graduating…late. I even missed one of my graduations due to an internship I had at the time. The fear arrested me with the belief that, if I just missed one shift–the only opportunity I had going upon graduation–I’d lose this opportunity, including my mind. 

You know what else? I almost majored in fashion. Almost. Until I was told, “Your GPA isn’t high enough to enroll in this major. You have to pick something else.” The only “safe” choice was English. As devastating as that was, it was the best thing to ever happen to me, starting with the probation.

When you’re in the thick of any moment, it always feels like the world is tightening you in the corner. The walls are closing in on you so much that you can barely see your world crumbling. But you can hear it. You can listen to the grovels, feel the grim debris fall around you, and smell the smoky remains of the crash. 

Although a bit foggy in my mind (which may be due to the trauma el oh el), I remember the entry into the spring of 2015 as bittersweet, heavy, and confusing. I was taking blow by blow and every hit on the chin… 

Freshman year of College, spring semester, ‘15

Academic probation…Mink! 

Major-selection rejection…Pow!

College job/financial setbacks…Boom! 

Then, my house burned down at the end of my Spring semester. 

You know how you shake up a snow globe and watch the sprinkly articles fly around all over in the Christmas-themed sphere? When you stop, there’s a slow fall of the sprinkles settling? 

Consider that my reality. Everything I ever knew went awry. Debris flew in the crevices of what was once safe, intimate places that I called home, and my family dynamic, as well as my mental health, shifted. Nonetheless, I had an English major, aspirations, and my words. 

I always thought that I was winging it. Finessing, really. But, recently, I was browsing on my socials and stumbled across this video of someone explaining that you only know the words you know, and that’s what you’ll label yourself and your experience with, from a limited point of view. 

I had limited language. 

Was I “finessing” so to speak, or adapting…pivoting? Pushing the fuck through? 

I entered this world fighting. Due to the strangulation of my umbilical cord, my mother and I almost didn’t make it. That reality is what kept me sane. It still does. Especially when, during those rough college days, my mother would inform me how “strong” I was. That she was proud. 

“You never called home. I never had to worry about you,” She would say. 

Strength became the language people used for me before I had any of my own. See, when you’re stubborn, add in a dash of delusion and undiagnosed? You make up remedies and habits to get to where you need to. 

I wrote it out. Created it out. Cried it out. Danced it out, which ultimately made me figure it out. 

I didn’t have a choice…literally. 

No, like, I had little to no choices upon graduation. I had to do deep introspection and check my ego when that congratulatory spirit emerged. Friends landing jobs, internships, major opportunities, and a steadfast timeline to their dreams. 

I was super proud of my friends who are still teaching and navigating their careers with great power. We were mostly English majors, with some majoring in psychology. Nurturing roles they were well equipped for was a sight to witness. I was truly, undeniably proud.

But their artsy-go-where-the-wind-blows, super stylish, beauty and fashion-loving friend didn’t want to teach. I had those glossy, starry-eyed dreams. Thankfully, I also had tunnel vision. 

Coupled with the stubbornness and delusion I mentioned, the epiphany eventually brought clarity, clearing my blurry vision of what the future held: people are not meant to all follow the same path. 

I look at life in chapters. (Oh, sue me. I’m a writer.) I believe every individual has their own story to tell. Depending on what you think, I see mine as a collaboration with God—the ultimate author. God sets the scenes, places the cast along my journey, and even introduces the familiar adversaries, antagonists, and protagonists, complete with climaxes, expositions, and tricky turns. God knows the ending. My role, as a collaborator at that time, was to keep doing my part while God edited, scrapped, revised, and quietly nudged me toward the next page.

There’s still something unknown being written. Thankfully, I now have a more expansive vocabulary to describe the journey. Timelines aren’t the same because they aren’t meant to be. And really, who wants to read a story that reads and ends like every other thing written?

Exactly. 

Until next time,
Jenn