From the Outside Looking In

 

Spring Arbor University is an amazing college. Every time I step on campus, I feel as if I’m walking into a friendly grandmother’s kitchen … minus the doilies and weird farm pictures.

However, this semester is especially rough for me. This is my final semester before high school graduation and I am consistently bombarded with deadlines and reminders and events. Honestly, I’m struggling to keep up between SAU, the high school, and my online financing course.

I began having panic attacks this weekend. I had three yesterday. The building stress level and denial about graduating is really affecting me. At the bi-annual blood draw, I needed my pulse checked three times before it was low enough to actually give blood. When it finally was low enough, it was barely below the mark and I passed out just off the table. I need to slow down to nourish my body, but Time is just relentlessly shoving and stretching me in every direction she can muster.

Currently, I find I cannot connect with my college classmates. Being younger than all of them intimidates me, I believe, but I just can’t find contentment on campus this semester. This displacement makes it very difficult to picture myself away from my high school, which has become a dysfunctional home. Again, I absolutely love SAU and walking onto campus feels like I completely belong; I just feel that I’m observing everyone from the outside and not actually a part of the community quite yet.

The combination of high stress, a complete rerouting of my career path, impending disconnection, and a heart that decides to pump enormous amounts of adrenaline at 3,000bmp (slight exaggeration) is really about to find that straw to break my back.

Until then, I’m going to enjoy my spring break … even though I still have my morning SAU classes, a music major audition (performing four selections, sight-reading, and doing scales I have yet to check .. all with four minutes of warm-up after a class I pray does not run over) a volunteering project at a nearby church, a long overdue lunch with an old friend, two reports, an essay, AP testing studying, and two dozen scholarship applications. All in one week.

See you at the aftermath.

~C