The Road that Leads Home

When I first left for college I thought I was making my first giant steps into adulthood. Now a year and a half later I am exactly back where I started. At this moment I am sitting on the floor of my parents living room watching the "Barefoot Contessa" chop vegetables and fresh herbs so smoothly it should be called The Food Porn Network. And Southeastern has just finished Spring Semester 2010, a semester that I could not attend. So here I am overlooking half of a year wondering who I am, and who I will be become, and seeing that the road I choose to leave home has, in the end, brought me back.

I am lucky to have this home to come to, parents more than willing to support me, and a church full of loving people. But this is not where I saw myself. I have discovered how weak and childish a person I am.

For years as a youth I struggled in silence with panic disorder. Almost becoming agoraphobic, I would instantly have a release of adrenaline as soon as I would leave my house. Grocery stores, Target, KOHLS, they all became feared places, and a crowded mall was like a death trap. Most fourteen year old girls adopt these places as a second home, I however couldn't bare the thought of it. I felt pathetic, and I allowed myself to act pathetic. I found freedom in riding my bike. All over the neighborhood. And music, I felt weightless when I was riding my bike, or listening to music. I even combined the two. It was long before iPods, so I took a little white battery powered radio and taped it between my handle bars. I remember listening to Coldplay's The Scientist while I leaned and flowed around curves. I felt like a butterfly.

I had to leave college because I was struggling, once again, with panic disorder. Now when I sit still I worry over what it has cost me. Today I took a ten mile bike ride, my iPod, secured by an amazing case and arm band, was there fueling me with music.

When I go back to college I will do it right. I will be healed, and prepared. And this time I will take my bike with me, just in case.