I joined Onward State as a senior, which is rare it even accepts someone this late into their college career. With so much of my younger years being eaten up by anxiety about the future, I found it hard to make any concrete plans. Despite all the things I didn’t know, there were two things I was certain of: I wanted to become someone I was proud of, and I would work like hell to make it happen. I never felt like I had a goal that made sense or would amount to anything substantial. I carried that worry with me everywhere, and because of how much it consumed me, I’ve spent most of my life winging it. How did everyone in this little town know exactly the person they wanted to be? I was scared to be on my own for more than 30 minutes and here they were thinking about being on their own in the real world. My time was spent worrying about every little detail of my existence, and then worrying some more about how much I was worrying. What exactly was I supposed to say? I was a beside-myself anxious child who feared their own shadow.
I remember fidgeting in my seat and my palms getting sweaty when teachers would make their way around the classroom to ask the god-forsaken question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I never knew what I wanted to do in life.
