Live the Life You're Afraid to Live

It’s Sunday evening and I really just remembered that it was my turn to write the blog at the last moment. I was laying on my bed and now anymore if I’m not doing work of some sort for school I’m going over every possible thing in my head that I could be doing and/or still need to do. I have all my lesson materials made for tomorrow, so the blog was the next thing that popped into my head that still needed to be done. So, here I am writing it.

As I’m writing the blog, sitting on my couch in my two bedroom apartment, I can’t help but reflect on how much this once foreign place to me now feels like home. When I first moved to Memphis approximately 4 months ago, my life seemed so surreal. Being in college at the University of Iowa was such a strong part of my identity that allowing anything else to infringe upon that seemed absurd.

There was a little part of me that didn’t want to let go of my old life in Iowa. I wanted to keep in touch with all of my old friends on a weekly basis. I wanted to stalk Facebook and see what everyone was up to and what events were going on in that state. I often imagined what life would be like if I still lived in Iowa or even what life would be like if I ever returned to live there again. That little part of me didn’t want to let go because I was afraid of moving on, afraid of creating a new life, my own life. This was something I had never done before. Sure, you create a quasi-new life when you go to college, but so much of that life is thrown at you and it requires very little of you to be proactive in the creation of it.

As time has passed and I’ve been living in Memphis for four months, I now find myself calling this non-Midwestern city home. I find myself glancing at the Mississippi River view outside of my apartment and thinking of how I chose a great place to live. I find myself going out with my 2 best friends, Jennie and Soren, on Beale Street and thinking how lucky I am to have found people down here just as awesome as my college friends. I find myself sitting under those Friday Night Lights watching the Fairley football team even after I have spent an entire week around my students. I find myself going to bed at 10:30 p.m. on the weekends and waking up at 8 a.m. even when I have the opportunity to sleep in. I find myself with an “adult” daily routine. I find myself thinking about adult things such as retirement, investments and long term career goals. I find myself getting excited to go grocery shopping and buying home decor for my bedroom and apartment. I find myself actually doing laundry, dishes and cleaning my bathroom on a regular basis. I find myself loving the life I was afraid to live.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think of the family I left behind in Iowa, the friends that made my college experience so meaningful, the desolate, corn filled scenery and the many memories that go along with it. But that’s just it, those are all memories. I am no longer the crazy gal that could go to Club Car on a Sunday night just because and that’s okay. That memory will always be one of my fondest memories of Iowa City and college, but as of right now, I am that crazy, overly positive Spanish teacher from the state that no one has ever heard of, living in the extremely diverse, beautiful city of Memphis, TN. Growing up is a little bit scary, not only because of all of the responsibilities that come along with it, but because you fear that you may become more comfortable with the person and life you grow into more than the one that you knew. Embrace that fear, fore it is within that fear that we grow <3.