What A Revelation It Was When She Realized She Didn't Need To Settle
As I've gotten older--as we all have-- I've realized people like to meet some sort of standard. As human beings, we can't help it. Especially in today's world where we try to meet some made up standard that we need to receive a lot of "likes". We need to dress a certain way, not necessarily to be "cool", but because that is the standard. And if you really pay attention, you realize people do things based off of what they believe other people think they should be doing. Confused? Me too. Keep reading and I'll clarify... eventually.
What a joy it is to say I have finished my freshman year of college!!! I am no longer a resident of the state of Kansas! I guess I might still be considering I'm still registered to vote there... I don't know and that's too much information that you don't care to know, so let's continue.
I moved halfway back to Oklahoma in the middle of May. I say halfway because I only moved half of my stuff home because 4 days after I moved home, I had to go back to Kansas and move again. This time to an apartment that I shared with other members of the track team who were also headed to nationals. So I technically didn't move back to Oklahoma until the end of May. Going in to college, I knew I would be living in Kansas for at most two years. However, I quickly learned that it would only be a year. There's numerous personal reasons as to why this was and one day I'll be able to share what I went through, all the lessons I learned, and all my wisdom and knowledge, but for now, read on.
So after deciding that my time in Kansas was coming to end, the next step was deciding where to go next. I knew I had decided to end my track career and so because of that there was no where I "wanted" to go. Not that I didn't want to go to college, but I simply didn't care where I went to college. So I decided to attend Arkansas State University!!! Go Red Wolves!
I had long ago decided that after track I wanted to start modeling and competing in pageants again, and with pageants comes the talent portion and with the talent portion comes dance! So therefore I knew I would eventually start dancing again. And with that I decided to try out for the dance team! Anddd... I made it!
So here I am! I moved to Arkansas about 3 weeks ago! Absolutely packed up and moved: everything!!! My mom had recently retired so I brought her and my dogs along with me. So far I love Arkansas. We are so deep in to the heart of Arkansas that if we were to have moved any further we would be in Tennessee; we're 45 minutes from Memphis! It's beautiful here; there are so many enormously tall trees and everything is so green. There's hills and mountains and the people have some of the thickest accents I have ever heard! This move, well it was a good one.
So I want to encourage you. Encourage you to think. Think about your life and what you want and what you're after. Because what we've all forgotten, is who ever told you to settle? Who told you Oklahoma (most of my readers are Okies), or your county, or your town or city had walls and barriers that you could not cross? Who told you that was it? That life was not waiting for you to take it by the hand? I'm here to tell you that it is! Life is so beautiful, and passionate, and sometimes painful, but experiencing it is so, so worth it.
If you ever get the chance to travel, do it. If you ever get the chance to have an extended stay outside of where you're from, do it. If you ever get the chance to move to another state, do it. Because in a world that is so centered around living in the comfort of our own four walls, knocking those walls down and freeing yourself is even that much more thrilling.
I'll be in Arkansas for a while. But this isn't where I'm settled. Oklahoma isn't where I'll settle, and neither is Kansas. Only God knows where I'll end up next. But until then, I'll spend my days hiking through the mountains of Arkansas and chuckling (on the inside) at the accents of all my new friends.
What a revelation it was when I realized I didn't have to settle.
Ashley
What a joy it is to say I have finished my freshman year of college!!! I am no longer a resident of the state of Kansas! I guess I might still be considering I'm still registered to vote there... I don't know and that's too much information that you don't care to know, so let's continue.
I moved halfway back to Oklahoma in the middle of May. I say halfway because I only moved half of my stuff home because 4 days after I moved home, I had to go back to Kansas and move again. This time to an apartment that I shared with other members of the track team who were also headed to nationals. So I technically didn't move back to Oklahoma until the end of May. Going in to college, I knew I would be living in Kansas for at most two years. However, I quickly learned that it would only be a year. There's numerous personal reasons as to why this was and one day I'll be able to share what I went through, all the lessons I learned, and all my wisdom and knowledge, but for now, read on.
So after deciding that my time in Kansas was coming to end, the next step was deciding where to go next. I knew I had decided to end my track career and so because of that there was no where I "wanted" to go. Not that I didn't want to go to college, but I simply didn't care where I went to college. So I decided to attend Arkansas State University!!! Go Red Wolves!
I had long ago decided that after track I wanted to start modeling and competing in pageants again, and with pageants comes the talent portion and with the talent portion comes dance! So therefore I knew I would eventually start dancing again. And with that I decided to try out for the dance team! Anddd... I made it!
So here I am! I moved to Arkansas about 3 weeks ago! Absolutely packed up and moved: everything!!! My mom had recently retired so I brought her and my dogs along with me. So far I love Arkansas. We are so deep in to the heart of Arkansas that if we were to have moved any further we would be in Tennessee; we're 45 minutes from Memphis! It's beautiful here; there are so many enormously tall trees and everything is so green. There's hills and mountains and the people have some of the thickest accents I have ever heard! This move, well it was a good one.
So I want to encourage you. Encourage you to think. Think about your life and what you want and what you're after. Because what we've all forgotten, is who ever told you to settle? Who told you Oklahoma (most of my readers are Okies), or your county, or your town or city had walls and barriers that you could not cross? Who told you that was it? That life was not waiting for you to take it by the hand? I'm here to tell you that it is! Life is so beautiful, and passionate, and sometimes painful, but experiencing it is so, so worth it.
If you ever get the chance to travel, do it. If you ever get the chance to have an extended stay outside of where you're from, do it. If you ever get the chance to move to another state, do it. Because in a world that is so centered around living in the comfort of our own four walls, knocking those walls down and freeing yourself is even that much more thrilling.
I'll be in Arkansas for a while. But this isn't where I'm settled. Oklahoma isn't where I'll settle, and neither is Kansas. Only God knows where I'll end up next. But until then, I'll spend my days hiking through the mountains of Arkansas and chuckling (on the inside) at the accents of all my new friends.
What a revelation it was when I realized I didn't have to settle.
Ashley
Comments
Post a Comment