Courageous. Strong. Bold.

I came across this excerpt from my word document titled "my first book," which I started in 2017, right after I graduated from the College of St. Benedict.  For those of you who don't know much about St. Ben's, we call it CSB for short, and one of the acronyms for the Bennies is Courageous. Strong, and Bold, which I find very fitting. I loved St. Ben's dearly, and despite all of the struggles I went through, I wouldn't change them for anything because they have made me a stronger person today. 

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“I am thankful for my struggle because without it, I wouldn’t have stumbled across my strength” 

When I turned 18, I thought I was a true adult who had figured out life.  I was excited to go off to college and have the time of my life, to become a new person, and to find the career and man of my dreams.  They say college is the best four years of your life, the time where you can escape all of the problems that come with living in the safety net of your parents’ home.  I thought I would have figured out my life after walking across that stage with my diploma and that I would be sad to leave the “best” 4 years of my life, but actually, none of that happened.  I believe that we never truly figure out everything about our lives, but that is what makes it pretty freaking cool. We are always growing, evolving, and changing, and self-discovery is a constant part of life.  Well, I discovered so much about myself in college, and I honestly look back on those four years as some of the toughest years of my life.  If you knew me as an acquaintance, professor, teammate, etc. you would probably never know the extent of what I went through.  It breaks my heart to look back at what happened during those four years, suffering with severe anorexia, dealing with anxiety and panic attacks, and also discovering that I have ADHD.  However, now that I have made it out stronger on the other side, I am learning not to mourn what happened, but to instead have grace for myself and be proud of how far I have come.  "Take pride in how far you have come and have faith in how far you can go."