Discovering New Circles

Imagine our life each as its own circle, and each new person you meet intersects their circle with yours. Sometimes you meet new people and you automatically "click" with them, and the circles latch onto each other effortlessly. Other times, it takes days or weeks or months to find a slot in the circles that can click. Circles may drift apart where the two circles are just near each other but not really connected, like classmates you see on campus but never talk to. There are a couple circles that stay constant (like your long term best friends and family members), and some circles that come and go depending on the day.

I've been intersecting with a lot of new circles lately, and connecting with more people than I ever thought I would. Because it's second semester of my senior year, I've been trying hard to talk to people and put myself out there to make new friendships while still spending quality time with old friends, too. Instead of being stuck behind a screen, or typing until my thumbs get sore, going on adventures with people has been quite the positive experience. It doesn't matter that there are only about 50 school days left of my senior year, or that I will leave all that I know behind when I go to college. It's never too late to make the effort to learn more about other people and find commonalities and differences between other people. The differences I have with people actually help drive conversation forward, and with respect and open-mindness,  I feel closer to them. Conversation usually starts of with the basic, "How are you?" but quickly become reflective of our high school journey and what has changed over time. Talking to different people and hearing about what they have to say about their life and their future goals helps me put in perspective with what I want to accomplish the last couple of months I'll be at home. I want to wrap up on my time in high school by learning more about who I am and the path I want to follow into my future.

One thing I am struggling with, however, is finding the balance and giving myself some well-deserved "me" time. It is great to discover new connections with people, but sometimes it's easy to lose myself within all of that. I'd like to say I'm quite an introspective person when I want to be, and I feel a lack of that recently. When I find time for myself, it's satisfying to be able to clear my head and put things into perspective. Being solely focused on me takes a lot of stress away from other people's (and society's) expectations of what a happy life is supposed to be pictured.

Even though college letters are being sent out right now, and many Seniors are in the midst of receiving rejections and acceptances, I'm surprisingly able to stay calm...

Here's how I see it: we are going to end up attending one college, not all that we applied to. At the end of this entire process, we will have made a decision for ourselves that we will have to roll with for the next couple of years to come. We will grow and learn from the experience itself, no matter what the name of the college is. Our end goal isn't undergrad, it's the rest of our lives.

Thanks for reading through some late night ramblin',
Shan