There is something incredibly poignant – albeit mildly concerning – about the number of life-altering decisions that are expected to be made in the midst of our youth.
These decisions and responsibilities have the potential to weigh heavily on an individual because they could potentially change the directory of their life.
Especially as a young person, when everything is the end of the world, the idea of the permanence or consequences of one decision feels like it will make or break your life. Whether it is picking friends, a profession, a major, or a university, there is a weight to our decisions.
Picking a university can be incredibly intimidating, as there are so many things to consider. Do they have your major? Your sport? What are the scholarship opportunities? Is it too far from home? It is too close to home?
“Oh, these are the best years of your life,” says every adult that you speak to, but the decisions are stifling and it feels like something you cannot manage, let alone handle.
The questions and considerations seem endless and, for me, they were nearly too overwhelming.
For me, it always seemed pretty straightforward. I did the duty of every high school student: taking the ACT, maintaining my GPA, writing application essays and scholarship essays and resumes and introductory emails to admissions departments, honors councils, department heads and so on and so on.
It was overwhelming, but I managed. I narrowed my decision to a handful of schools, rifled through the respective scholarship packets, weighed the odds and decided.
It was the decision that I had been pining after for the entirety of my high school career. I was going away to college. To Tennessee specifically. I would leave the St. Louis area only to return on holidays and breaks or if I really needed to pet the family dog.
It never occurred to me that taking this leap would be intimidating in any way. I had wanted it for so long, why stop now?
So, I anticipated what I was told was going to be the best years of my life on bated breath with barely contained enthusiasm.
The day came for orientation weekend where the university required select groups of incoming freshmen to stay on campus for the weekend to sign up for classes, get their ID badges, find their dorm assignments and gradually begin adjusting to the campus community.
My mom and sister made the four-hour trek from our driveway to the heart of campus, where we were welcomed by a conglomerate of university students decked out in the school colors and the school mascot – a slightly obese, elderly bulldog – slobbering carelessly on the quad.
I immediately felt some form of unease tightening in my chest but assured myself that it was definitely excitement.
I sucked it up and participated in the array of on-campus activities far into the night until I admitted defeat and walked back to the dorm where I would temporarily be staying.
I unrolled a sleeping bag onto quite literally the most unforgiving “mattress” that I have ever encountered, laid down and tried to go to sleep.
After about two hours, I realized that something was wrong. I could not fall asleep. The tension in my limbs was not solely due to the horrible excuse of a mattress but instead reverberated through my very being.
My chest was tight, my lungs constricting. I could not move, nor breathe. I listened to the sounds of giggling, mildly inebriated almost college freshmen running by my window, enjoying their first tastes of freedom. I sat awake for the entire night, unmoving, eyes open and my mind racing.
Earlier in the summer, I received the news that my best friend was sick. It was a health crisis that had no definite answer and only left us with a barrage of questions – each one more sinister than the last.
The longest I had ever gone without seeing her had been 10 days (which felt like an eternity and left me with semi-abandonment issues, but I digress), so how was I supposed to survive in an entirely different state than her?
There was also the matter of the literal pandemic that was ravaging the entire globe, which massively affected the ways that I would be able to connect with other people.
The next morning, with a sore … well, everything, bags under my eyes and an attitude that had seen better days, I went to get an ID card, packed up my stuff, said goodbye to my new friends and left.
On the way home, my mom drove with my sister in the passenger seat, leaving me alone in the backseat to contemplate and panic.
Everything was too loud. The car radio volume was barely above a hum, but to me, it seemed deafening.
Tendrils of panic wrapped around my spine and neck in a way that I was not quite sure how to handle.
I had not said anything about my newfound terror to my family, so they chatted quietly in the front seat about the campus and how welcoming it seemed – how they knew I would feel right at home there.
I listened in agitated silence, picking the skin around my nails raw and wishing that I did not have to be in the position to choose a school. The decision felt world-altering, and, to some degree, it was.
We made it home, where I immediately grabbed my bag, headed to my room, closed the blinds and sat on the floor.
With my knees tucked to my chest, I realized I did not feel called to go to that university. It was not that I had not wanted to, because I had, but instead, my intuition urged me to reconsider what I wanted against what I needed.
Apprehensively, I walked to the living room, collapsed on the couch and began to profusely ugly cry into my Mom’s shoulder.
“I don’t know why I feel like this. I don’t know what’s wrong,” I said over and over, as my lungs refused to take in air.
My mom, ever the God-fearing, patient woman that she is, began to talk me through my predicament.
“You should pray about it. But, if you think that God is telling you that this isn’t the right decision, then we find somewhere else,” she gently knocked my chin with the back of her knuckles in a show of comfort that has consistently calmed me down throughout my entire life. “Besides, I’m never going to tell you that you have to make the decision that is going to cause you to live four hours away from home.”
And so, with extreme embarrassment, as I hate having to go back on any decision, I changed my plans.
I re-rifled through the acceptance letters and scholarship packets until I narrowed it down to two schools that I was willing to scout out and possibly give a chance to.
Missouri Baptist University had always been on my radar. Coincidentally, my best friend attended here. I had an acceptance letter from MBU but had not seriously considered attending the university myself, as I was always preoccupied with escaping the St. Louis area and broadening my horizons.
Yet, upon some conversation with an admissions counselor, touring the abandoned (except for one summer class) campus, extensive conversation and encouragement from my best friend and a great deal of praying, I concluded that maybe MBU would be a good fit for me.
And as I work my way through my third year at MBU, I can honestly say that it is. My doubts and fears quickly diminished as I connected with other students and was encouraged by the very environment of MBU.
In taking the chance of unenrolling from the other university and choosing to go to Missouri Baptist University, I was not necessarily confident in my decision, but I went where I felt the Lord was calling me and I have not regretted it.
It turns out that what you want is not always what you need – an idea that shocked me almost as much as it irritated me.
Your path to success, or even just your path in general, will not always be linear. It is not always going to be straightforward or even make sense.
Sometimes it will seem as though the options that you have are not going to be enough, but I firmly believe your intuition and your faith will lead you to where you need to be.
