Metamorphosis

 I used to be so sure I would die before I was 18. I was sure i'd die a virgin... Before I actually started my life or reaching any real milestones in life. I was convinced I would die before I got a chance to go to college or get married. I just couldn't fathom change, or growing up. That and in a way, i knew my life was going to change. It felt like change, it felt like death.. It just always felt like something telling me to prepare myself...

Around my senior year in high school, I started having the anxiety of feeling like life was beginning to move way too fast. At first the thought of leaving grade school is refreshing. No more strict rules, no more having to be dictated when to start your day and end it, picking classes your basically forced to take interest in... But while there were pros to moving on, I also looked at the cons. I'll be on my own, i'd  never done laundry, or never had an issue without having my parents right there in the next room for me to run to... That thought was so scary in my head, it almost seemed impossible. I thought when I got on campus, I would make a complete fool of myself being lost and confused. I just couldn't imagine going somewhere new, alone, and actually survive without my familiar comforters.

Once I finally got to college I learned things weren't so bad, especially since I basically followed my sister. Georgia Southern University, a largely populated diverse university. It wasn't as hard to figure out as I thought, but I still somehow ended up lost. Not physically lost, but in the mist of finding myself. I started to feel that change feeling again, that anxious feeling, but I also had that feeling I was going to die before whatever it was I was feeling actually happened. When I can never see the light at the end of the tunnel, I just assumed I would die, because I just couldn't imagine my life changing even more...

In the beginning of my sophomore year of college, my mom would call me and tell me she dreamt of a baby girl that looked just like me, warning me to protect myself and avoid getting pregnant. At that time I really was abstinent (this was about six months before Hannah was conceived ) and I had already assumed I would die before I ever got married or had a child for the fact of that matter. So in a naïve way, I was still afraid, but I felt like that was the least of my worries because I felt like that was the one thing I could have control over...

Life quickly began showing me, change doesn't mean death, its the thin line between reality and sanity, acceptance that things won't always be the same. Aside from change, life showed me I'm not always exactly in control... All the things I tried to avoid, the things I seemed  to try to avoid the most because I was so afraid, happened so fast I hadn't even realized half of it. I was no longer a lost college virgin missing my parents each and everyday and oh was I going to find out...

I slowly began getting that anxious feeling again, like something was about to happen but I wouldn't be around long enough to see it, because I couldn't imagine what it could be... My whole life id pretty much had lupus symptoms but in early 2012 certain symptoms became more frequent but still not harsh so I was still undiagnosed back then.. I began to notice, I was changing. The not so bad symptoms had become habitual... But this time I knew I was different. And this time I thought I was really dying. I'd gotten pregnant, and it brought all those silently dancing symtptoms to the light because my hormones were so shaken up... My symptoms went from 1 to 100 real quick, which is why I was diagnosed with lupus before actually finding out I was pregnant, although being pregnant is what onset my lupus...

I just couldn't understand out of all the changes, the one change I could control, I felt like I lost control over. I could call myself all kinds of dumb and naïve but I still had to realize change was inevitable whether by choice or not, chapters are supposed to end, we're supposed to change... And what would life be if we always knew every step in our lives? My life changed, not ended.. I just always felt like I would die because I felt change was coming but I didn't know what it was... The girl I was before these experiences have made me into the woman I am today. I didn't die but I have changed... I no longer view change as a step closer to death, I look at it as a new challenge , a new chapter to life because I now know, things are meant to change, meant to make us stronger... Especially those changes we least expect.