TAKING TIME TO GROW
Ask anyone that has ever met me and they will tell you that I am an extrovert. I love being around people, meeting new people, and I get energy from interaction with others.
However, freshman year of college, I became very overwhelmed in my personal life and felt the need to just get away from it all. So when summer rolled around, I grabbed my four legged best friend, my golden retriever Max, packed my suitcase (and anything else I could cram into the backseat of my car) and moved back to Oak Island, NC (my family lived there when I was very young)for the summer. I quickly found a job at a local restaurant (shoutout Shagger Jacks); however, for the first two weeks I really struggled. I felt lonely not being surrounded by familiar people, family or friends for the first time in my life and thought maybe I had made a mistake.
In retrospect, I am so glad I gave it more time and didn’t just pack up and throw in the beach towel. It was hard in the beginning, but I eventually made new friends at work and was able to enjoy my new adventure.
I found joy in how simple my life had become: wake up, sit quietly drinking a cup of coffee, take Max for a stroll, relax on the beach with a good book, work with friends, repeat. I loved it. I had never had time to just focus on myself and actually feel myself living.
I learned how to enjoy being my own company. I would go on small dates with myself, lay on the beach and read a book alone, or take myself to Dairy Queen to inhale a berry cheesecake flavored Blizzard.
I also learned that I am capable of more than I thought. I learned how to kill spiders by myself (shoutout to my neighbor Mr. Charlie for killing the first few though) and mow the lawn every week on my own. However, I did get the occasional funny look on Sunday afternoons when passersby would see my 5-foot-tall self struggling to push a lawn mower, almost as big as I am, alongside the [usually] middle-aged [usually]men on my road who were also participating in the weekend grass-cutting ritual.
The summer spent on Oak Island was one full of growth that I hadn’t expected. I have never felt more at peace. I learned to enjoy the little things in life, but most importantly- I learned that when we take time to focus on ourselves and push ourselves outside of our comfort zones, we are capable of much more than we think.
