Be Wherever Your Feet Are

I don’t know if it’s a generational thing, or an anxiety thing, but I’m always living 5 years in the future. I started looking at colleges when I was 12, I got to university and immediately started thinking about what I was going to do after graduation, I’m graduating soon and I’m thinking about how long I want to wait to have kids. The rational side of me knows that I have absolutely no control over these things so far ahead, but it’s so hard to wonder “what if this decision I’m making messes everything up” (Read The Midnight Library by Matt Haig if you feel this way). My poor mother has had to hear me gripe about my future for ages now, and we keep going in circles — I say I’m worried, she says I need to focus on the present & go day-by-day.

A few months ago, a favorite artist of mine, Noah Kahan, released the song “You’re Gonna Go Far.” If you moved far away from your family for college (or honestly for any reason), this song will probably make you cry. I know it’s a shared experience to feel simultaneously guilty for leaving and know that you’re doing what’s best for yourself. I know that instead of feeling guilty, I should enjoy where I am for the time being, because it isn’t permanent. Sometimes it also feels weird to say that I miss home. When you tell people for the first time you’re moving abroad, they ask so many questions, one of which is “How can you go so far?” Now add “away from us” to the end of that sentence. To be honest, I really can’t be that far from family, which isn’t something 18-year-old me would have wanted to hear. I cried on the days leading up to my birthday last year — it was the first time in my entire life I didn’t spend the day with my family. I text my mom every day (part of it is me being nosy, I want to know what they’re up to) because it’s just plain weird to think of not talking to my mom every day since for the first 18 years of my life I would. I know that my situation is very different from others —I have friends who have hard relationships with family which means their moving abroad experience is much different than mine. In some ways, theirs are harder than mine, because picking yourself up and moving somewhere new without a good support system is an extremely hard thing to do. I hate being away for holidays, I hate not sleeping with my cat every night, I hate not being able to go hang out with my best friend on the weekends. But I also love it here, and when I’m not here, I feel out of sorts. It’s such a weird juxtaposition to be in. And now, with people asking me what I’m doing when I graduate in a year, I keep changing my mind.

I swear I’m the epitome of changing your mind. I’ve changed my major (technically) 3 times, I’ve taken a gap semester, I’ve moved away from home and back again, I’ve transferred universities. I laugh when I think about explaining this to my 16-year-old self. She thought she had the whole world figured out. At this point, I despise making life decisions. I am so insecure in my own ability to choose; I wish someone else could do it for me. On the other hand, I also feel as if I’m exactly where I need to be right now. I could move to an entire other part of the world in a year, or I could move an hour from my parents. I could even stay where I am now. I know that I am so privileged to have as many options as I do, and I need to appreciate that more. But I also need to stop living in the future, and focus on the obnoxious number of assignments I have due in October, and plan on what cake I’m making for my best friend’s birthday next week, and mail my parents a card. I need to be where my feet are, because that’s the only place I have actual control over. I can allow myself to plan for the next month, or even decide on bigger happenings in 3 months, but I cannot think about July 2024, or 2025, or 2026. Although I am apprehensive of those years, I am also very excited and grateful for the future. I like to wonder who I’ll be then, but I shouldn’t forget to meet who I am now.