Today, after five years of waiting... I have gotten my license! I personally hadn't wanted to drive, up until the age of eighteen. You would think that would be the complete opposite because if anyone knew me back then, I couldn't wait to get out of school and I loved going to Dallas. I was mainly just afraid of driving. I hadn't actually driven a car until my senior year of high school, but once I did... I wanted to drive all of the time. My mom had been sick half of my life, so the main focus was on her. Although, she was the one to first take me driving and taught me how to, the months after, there was never time for me to drive. I didn't really mind, due to still being in school and afraid of driving. When I graduated is when things became uncontrollable, we began to have financial issues and eventually my car would breakdown beyond repair. Further financial issues would leave me without anything to drive... and I definitely resented that I wasn't able to, unlike both of my sisters. I spent a lot of this time focusing on drinking and hooking up, rather than trying to find a way to transport myself. I even saved money to buy a macbook... not to go towards a car. Fast forward to this year, with my mother getting even more sick, there was absolutely no time for me to learn to drive. I had money for a down-payment, but even as I tried my hardest to find a car... nothing ever worked out. Evidently, I have a car now and now my license as well! I'm excited, I've been feeling myself growing and evolving in the past year, and this will be the first big change. I'm proud of myself, even-though I'm five years late... but I am a late bloomer; even when I was little learning to read, tie my shoes, ride a bike, and even getting potty-trained. I always have been and always will be.
Today feels like the complete death of my adolescence, childhood and immaturity. I've gone through a lot of struggles since I was about ten years old. My life has certainly been anything except "easy," but I've made my way through and all of it has made me a stronger woman. There's been a lot of growing up recently within this past year. I stopped being friends with my best friend, she lost her mom, I lost my mom, reunited with my best friend, got my first vehicle, got my first apartment, moved away from my first job of over two years, started my tattoo sleeve, got my first boyfriend, had the first Thanksgiving without my mom, fell in love, had the first Christmas without my mom, gone through my first break-up and now I finally have my license. It just feels like the last days of my remaining "innocence" are now gone. It's definitely bittersweet, I like no longer feeling like a child or a fifteen year old anymore. I'm officially an "adult" now and it's about damn time that I start acting like it.
I have so many things that I want to accomplish… Most of these are things that will just have to take time, but alternatively… most of them I need to be more proactive about achieving. Today, I'm also feeling much more inspired to build up the confidence within myself to push and pursue everything that I've been dreaming about, I just need to keep moving forward. I do have so much to prove, not just to my family, my friends, my peers and society... but most importantly, to myself. I have the power within myself and within my mind to have all of my dreams come true. Nothing is ever as impossible as it seems, the only real obstacle we are ever faced with is ourselves. I've had many of the same goals written down for years. It's not necessarily that I've been lazy, I've just put things ahead of my dreams. I've let my own sadness, negativity, stress, recklessness and everything else come between me and my future. I think the passing of my mother and my break-up has been the final broken straws to the worst and hardest years of my life. There were plenty of times where my needs and wants weren't able to be full-filled, so I simply focused on things that I could control... inadvertently things that wound up controlling me. I'm strong though, I've been able to keep myself above the negativity and usually have had my head on straight... for the most part. I know what I need to do, I've always know, it's just that the way of going about it hasn't always been clear. It's been rough, I didn't actually realize how continual all these punches were until today, when I thought about the years after I graduated. I've definitely been lost and have been compensating with various outlooks... mainly them being alcohol, the opposite sex, and just all around horrible decisions. These almost three years have been an intense roller-coaster, that's for sure, despite all of the mistakes and setbacks I've had in the past, I stand before you much more intelligent, stronger and more determined than ever. This is just who I am, and who I've always been. I'm no longer going to dwell on the past, and let the past own me... I'm going to do something about it. I'm going to be channeling all of my potential and energy into my dreams, instead of parts of life that I can't control. There is a lot that I want to accomplish before the end of the year, and I will stop at nothing until I do.
For now, I say goodbye to this chapter in my life and I look forward to what comes next.
