Brave

Brave...not ever a word I'd use to describe myself, at least not in the past 5 years. I'm the type of person who would boast about not being afraid of a haunted house, but turn heel as soon as I went inside. Now don't get me wrong I love being scared sometimes, I'm the first in line for a scary movie and love that adrenaline rush when something pops out on the screen.

But in the past year I have put the word brave back into my vocabulary. I did something I never would have imagined I could do. I stepped out of my comfort zone and took a leap of faith. I moved away, went to school, tried to pull this fear off from the top shelf, and for once put what was best for myself first in my life.

Like everything else in my life, this involves a long story...
I remember the day so well. I was in the middle of having a panic attack for the fifth time that day. My mom was pressuring me and did not understand what was wrong, which caused her to get mad at me. To her I was just being lazy in not picking a college to go to. I was just about to complete my second year of community college and needed to find another place to transfer to. But that included me moving away and being taken out of my comfort zone. I was not ready for that, and had the constant nagging of people close to me telling me that I could NOT do it.
I was fed up, my mom had come in and yelled at me again for being so apathetic towards not wanting to do anything with my life. Which was true, I didn't even know what I wanted to do. She told me to go online and find a school or else she was gonna kick me out of the house after I graduated from the college I was at now. But I didn't want to, I stayed in bed crying most of the night, missing dinner.

I don't know what happened next, I don't really remember what exactly was going through my mind, but I wanted to drive. I needed to get out of the house and go somewhere. Without my mother noticing I slipped out the back door and hopped into my jeep. I drove for about an hour, not caring which way I went. Eventually I got lost (of course) and that caused me to panic. I didn't know the area too well and decided to turn around in a school parking lot. When I pulled in I noticed that all the lights were on, which was odd for 9 o'clock at night. There were many cars in the parking lot as well, and for some reason I was nosy. There was a security guard who then came up to my window (scared the living heck out of me) she asked if I was here for the college fair...I was dumbstruck and I really don't remember what I said, but before I knew it I was walking into a packed auditorium with over a hundred representatives from schools around the country.

I'm not a huge fan of crowds, but I didn't care tonight. I walked through the rows of tables, snatching brochures and other little freebies. It was so overwhelming! I walked to the back, away from all the crowds. Off in the corner by itself was a table with a guy. Nobody hoovered around it, and I decided to make my way over to it. The green banner on the table said "Slippery Rock University." I had never heard of it, and was pretty sure that it was the coolest named college ever! I grabbed a brochure and had a conversation with the guy sitting there. He was so informative. He told me all about the school. Showed me pictures of the beautiful landscape, all the activities and majors, and the town around it. And for some reason I fell in love with it. I took home as many bits of information I could from that table, and even signed up to receive a newsletter. The guy who had seemed bored before I showed up handed me a t shirt with the school's logo on it before I left.

I drove home thinking about Slippery Rock, thinking about all the possible majors to choose from. The only downside was was that it was six hours away from home, but never for a second did I doubt I couldn't do it. It felt right, and no stupid anxiety was going to ruin that for me! I got home (much to my mothers freaking out and asking where I had been.) I unloaded my pile of pamphlets onto the table in front of my mom without saying a word, and marched upstairs with a smile on my face. For once I felt like I was taking back my life.

Skip forward a few months to where I went out and visited the school (loved it!) Came home and was so excited. I sent in my application and got accepted right away! I was nervous and excited at the same time, but despite many people telling me that I was too much of a "coward" to go away, I wasn't going to let that stop me. Like I said, I wouldn't use the word brave to describe myself, but in this instance that's all that I could be!