THE SPACE BETWEEN SECONDS

I thought I knew what scared me. The usual stuff, you know? Blood. Sharp knives. Car crashes. Roaches. Bad grades. Disappointing my parents. Disappointing my friends. Losing a loved one. Having my heart broken. The black unknown at the bottom of the stairs after turning the lights off that I’m convinced holds malicious creatures or axe murderers ready to grab hold of my ankles (come on, you know what I’m talking about). But, with every year that passes, every birthday, every seemingly tragic thing that has happened to me, every hurt, disappointment, and gut-wrenching goodbye, I’ve started to realize something: all of those things weren’t what I feared most. I was completely wrong.

They weren’t kidding when they emphasized how much we would learn and grow in college. To be completely honest, graduating high school and heading to university was another horrible fear of mine. It was terrifying transitioning from this tiny, private school–a bubble, essentially–to a massive, diverse, challenging, and perhaps even slightly dangerous university.

What if classes were too hard? What if I had chosen the wrong school? What if I lost touch with my best friends? What if I didn’t even make new friends? What if I met a guy who would change my life forever? What if I met “the one”? What if I didn’t? The list of worries was endless, but then I got there, moved into my dorm, found my place, met some amazing people and I made it through. I survived my freshman year of college–thrived even. Before I knew it, I was trekking through the first round of finals and then it was winter break. I went back home for a month, spent time with family, got a part-time job I loved, reconnected with old friends, started feeling confident in having chosen the right major, and soon enough I had resumed spring classes.

Four months later, I was standing in my once-again empty dorm room, heart pounding as I looked out the huge, glass windows just as I had done my first night away from home, and bawled until my eyes were puffy and red in the realization that the year had flown by as furiously as it did. I glanced over at my now stripped bed devoid of its ruffled pillows and remembered all the late nights I had come home so grateful to curl up in it. My eyes gazed on to my desk where I had typed out essays and written homework assignments, stressed over exams, cursed professors’ names, and, of course, watched Netflix and painted my nails when I should have been studying. I continued my goodbye as I looked to my sofa chair where my friends had sat, where my roommate and I had held heart-to-hearts, where I had tucked my knees in and held my chest together when a boy had decided I wasn’t important enough to fight for. And as I walked out and locked the door one last time, I couldn’t help but feel out of breath. Air had literally escaped me. How was it possible that one-fourth of my college career was done, finished, locked away just like the remaining furniture and empty room standing behind the door of my dorm room that was, at this point, no longer mine?

As I handed over the keys and walked away for the last time, I racked my brain for why I felt as though I hadn’t lived the past nine months to my absolute fullest. I had experienced an unforgettable first year, made exhilarating memories along with a few reckless ones, and had laughed and cried and fought and smiled and had done everything I had hoped to do. Yet, I was still mourning because for the first moment in my life I was really, truly feeling the sharp sting of time slipping away. They say it’s all a part of growing into an adult. Well, I say screw that. Why, with every birthday that passes, should I become more and more numb to the importance of each day no matter how dull, consuming, important, or engrossing it may be? Why shouldn’t I soak in every hour, half hour, minute, second, and space between seconds?

So, this is my epiphany: I fear time most of all. It’s quite amusing for someone so young to already feel terrified of the time bomb that is life. I blame it on the fact that I think so much. I think a lot and I feel–I feel everything. Sometimes I think I feel emotions more deeply than everyone else around me. Then again, it’s more of a theory and not that important in the grand scheme of things. As my high school English teacher used to say playfully: “Yes, you have a birthday. But, guess what? So do I, and so does the rest of the human population. We all have birthdays. We’re not that special.” But that’s an entirely new blog post itself. My point is, I want to make the most of every single minuscule moment of time. I want to feel every emotion life has to offer and live it as it’s happening. Not that I didn’t do so this past year, but I know I can do better. To live in the here and now, to feel everything in the present moment and appreciate it all the way to my inner core. To stop worrying about the next day or the next month or what I’m going to be doing this time next year. Simply put: I just want to live.

That’s why I’ve decided to start writing it out. It’s mainly for myself, sort of an extensively edited and fine-tuned journal, I suppose. But, I figure why not share it? I love reading and I love exchanging thoughts and hearing people’s different thought processes. It helps me keep things real and in perspective. So take what you may and leave what you hate. However, I do encourage this: make the most of even the space between seconds. Whatever that means for you, go for it. Be happy. Be proud of who you are. Go after what you love and who you love. Turn the finite of this life into the infinite, because there are unlimited opportunities for opportunity.