College: A time for changes, realizations, and all around insanity.
Because the thought of being productive in an academic sense is daunting at the moment...not to mention my head feels like a rock concert and a polka band fused together in my brain due to all the reading I have done...I have decided to be more productive in a introspective sense.
I have come to the realization over the past couple of months that I have allowed people to walk all over me, allowing them to flatten not only my dignity under the weight of their shoes, but the kindness I have shown them as well. I figured that if I stood up for people and left myself open to attack...I would be seen as a good person. I now realize that the only time people appreciate a door mat, which is what I have become, is when they come in from nasty weather or off a particularly slippery slope and need something to brush off the nasty particles... make it easier for them to stand on their own two feet without feeling as if they are going to fall over or track the nastiness into other parts of their lives. However, once their feet are clean...conscience clear...you are no longer needed.
Because this scenario has happened so many times in my life, I find it really hard to trust people...which is probably part of the reason why I am so horrible with them. Every time someone says something nice...or hugs me, I expect to turn the corner twenty minutes later and hear them talk about how repulsed they are not only by my mere presence, but how they find the fact that I am a happy....and God forbid NICE person...to be annoying.
College has taught me many things. It has taught me the cultural differences between the North and the South, how to look at a bell curve without thinking it's a symbol that aliens made in a corn field, that sometimes we don't get the recognition we deserve no matter how hard we work, and just because you go to college, does not mean that you are a mature member of society. With all of these lessons that I have learned over the past three years, there is one that I have forgotten to mention and is perhaps the most important thing I have learned here: what friendship really is (or at least what it seems to be).
For the first time in my life, I have found the people who like me for me. For my spanglish speaking, performing arts loving, "I love you." saying, teddy bear hugging, extremely opinionated, loud and obnoxious self. Sadly, I never really thought that a day would come when I would look foreword to hanging out with people. Where I could laugh...and be myself without fearing some sort of tongue lashing as soon as I was out of earshot. Now that I understand why God sent me to Mercyhurst College (soon to be University) in Erie freaking Pennsylvania. Every person that I have met here as changed my life...and even though I have gone through some hard times in this place...they have made me the person that stands before you now. However, the person that stands before you now...is no longer alone. She has friends, real ones who say, "I'll be there for you." and mean it.
I have come to the realization over the past couple of months that I have allowed people to walk all over me, allowing them to flatten not only my dignity under the weight of their shoes, but the kindness I have shown them as well. I figured that if I stood up for people and left myself open to attack...I would be seen as a good person. I now realize that the only time people appreciate a door mat, which is what I have become, is when they come in from nasty weather or off a particularly slippery slope and need something to brush off the nasty particles... make it easier for them to stand on their own two feet without feeling as if they are going to fall over or track the nastiness into other parts of their lives. However, once their feet are clean...conscience clear...you are no longer needed.
Because this scenario has happened so many times in my life, I find it really hard to trust people...which is probably part of the reason why I am so horrible with them. Every time someone says something nice...or hugs me, I expect to turn the corner twenty minutes later and hear them talk about how repulsed they are not only by my mere presence, but how they find the fact that I am a happy....and God forbid NICE person...to be annoying.
College has taught me many things. It has taught me the cultural differences between the North and the South, how to look at a bell curve without thinking it's a symbol that aliens made in a corn field, that sometimes we don't get the recognition we deserve no matter how hard we work, and just because you go to college, does not mean that you are a mature member of society. With all of these lessons that I have learned over the past three years, there is one that I have forgotten to mention and is perhaps the most important thing I have learned here: what friendship really is (or at least what it seems to be).
For the first time in my life, I have found the people who like me for me. For my spanglish speaking, performing arts loving, "I love you." saying, teddy bear hugging, extremely opinionated, loud and obnoxious self. Sadly, I never really thought that a day would come when I would look foreword to hanging out with people. Where I could laugh...and be myself without fearing some sort of tongue lashing as soon as I was out of earshot. Now that I understand why God sent me to Mercyhurst College (soon to be University) in Erie freaking Pennsylvania. Every person that I have met here as changed my life...and even though I have gone through some hard times in this place...they have made me the person that stands before you now. However, the person that stands before you now...is no longer alone. She has friends, real ones who say, "I'll be there for you." and mean it.