Bailey P.
Photography by Lydia Troupe
If you’re reading this, remember that time passes anyway.
I remember the day I woke up and couldn’t smile being the first sign that something was really wrong. Me- miss neon orange, miss bubbly, miss positivity-in-a-human-package, couldn’t bring myself to drag my facial muscles upwards nor could I stop my shoulders from being magnetically drawn to the floor. This became an everyday occurrence during my freshman year of college. Unlike most, I did not look forward to college. Although I was a pretty solid student in high school, I didn’t have any dreams of going to college; I just couldn’t think of anything else I wanted to do after graduating, so I had clicked around the CommonApp and applied to a few schools, Georgia Tech included. I was grateful for the opportunity to attend college, and GT of all places, but I wasn’t particularly interested in what it all meant - new friends, new place to live, new classes, new everything. I had never minded change until quite literally everything changed.
Even though I felt I’d had a successful and enjoyable high school experience - good grades, good extracurriculars, and great friends, I found the idea of doing all that again in college paralyzing. How could I just start over when I’d had it so good a few months prior? That paralyzing feeling weighed on me throughout that year; I made very few friends, barely participated in class, and did 0 clubs. I became my antithesis. Each day was harder than the previous one, and I became a paperweight while it felt that every other freshman was experiencing a freshman year you’d see in the movies. I started to resent everything, including my peers and Tech- I could have won a “Nihilist of the Year” award. I kept waiting for it all to get better, like I was going to wake up in my dorm one day and the whole world was going to have shifted on its axis just for me.
Once you get to that kind of headspace, it becomes so hard to leave. While unwanted, you almost start to welcome the heaviness and you just sort of let it sit with you. I pushed away so many feelings and let so many days and months pass, hoping somehow something would change.
As I said, I was playing a never-ending waiting game. The constant thoughts of “once I get this grade up I’ll feel better”, “once I make more friends I’ll be happier”, and “once I fix my relationship I’ll be good”. When I started to achieve some of those things and my life didn’t magically get better, I knew I needed to dig deeper. It took a lot of thinking (and bouts of denial) (and tears) to realize I was holding myself back from getting better. This wasn’t something I could quickly fix, but I figured that I needed a major shift in perspective.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the secret as to how my perspective started to shift. I think it was a culmination of desperation and scraping the bottom of the barrel so hard that I broke through it, but I made it out. It was a slow process, beginning with the realization that I was my biggest enemy. It wasn’t my peers, the classes I was taking, or the circumstances around me. It was how much comfort I found in my numbness. Finding out that you are what is holding you back is difficult; I so badly wanted to throw that blanket of blame over any other fire but my own.
In all of my thinking, I realized a few things. One thing was that I wasn’t sure who I was at that point in my life, but the person I had embodied was not someone I cared to keep. I also realized I was waiting for opportunities to cross my path; I wanted to get involved in school and form more relationships, but I wasn’t doing any active work to make that happen. And with that, the biggest thing I determined was holding me back was that I felt I didn’t deserve to be happier. What was I doing to make my circumstances better? Nothing. I was wallowing and complaining and I was stationary. I felt that I was being pulled in each direction by the me I once knew and the person I was becoming. I wanted to make big changes to my life but I was scared of what people in my life would think once I started to.
I felt shackled to people's expectations of me. The image I had made for myself. I was so afraid. Sometimes I still am afraid. Afraid that people won’t keep me once they know me. Afraid to lose the people that I was fooling by being someone I wasn’t. But I’m trying to just feel that fear now, and I encourage others to feel it too. I pushed away my feelings for so long that they still come seeping out at random moments- but it’s okay! Feel that rage, feel that despair, feel that grief, because once you do that, you start feeling the happiness, the laughter, the SUN! And you pass that feeling on to others as well.
Sophomore year came around and I just went all in. I embodied the “I AM HER” mentality and I ran with it- I started talking in class, joining clubs, cracking jokes, and smiling again. Sometimes I was faking it to get through the day but it all became real very quickly. I didn’t allow the weight of new beginnings to burden me. It no longer mattered if I thought I deserved things. I was going to be it, do it, have it, anyway. Why? Because life kept moving. The clock never stopped ticking while I was waiting for it all to get better. The sun still rose and set. The time passed anyway.
If you’re reading this, remember that time passes anyway. You are the conductor of your life and even when it feels like you’re not in control, you are. Take risks, love hard, feel those feelings, and make those mistakes. If you take away anything from this letter, dear reader, please start living today. Even if it feels safer, easier, or less scary to stay where life feels comfortable, stop waiting. Wear neon orange, sing on your walks to class, run for that position, and smile! After all, time is passing anyway.
Bailey P. (she/her), Georgia Tech
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