My Year in Reflection– A delicate dance with time and growth.

Growth is one of those things you hear about everywhere, but lacking personal experience with it, is more of a word than anything else. Whether I like to accept it or not, it took moving out of my childhood home, facing a new city and new people head on, and leaning into that initial vulnerability for me to experience growth of this magnitude. The first of my college years revealed me to myself, bringing me along a whirlwind of experiences and teaching me the beauty in this integral part of the human experience: change.

A lot can happen in a year. I know this to be true as I reflect on the scared, timid girl who showed up to school and merely focused on tackling each day as it came in order to stay afloat, amid the sea of emotions splashing down on her, and compare it to the one right now, peacefully hamocking in total contentment atop her favorite hill with a pen in hand.

The difference is subtle, almost too subtle, as to not allow anyone else the pleasure of understanding the magnitude of my transformation.

And I find beauty in that– knowing that I keep this sweet knowing all to myself.

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My high school years were of a different type of growth. I grew up, and grew more into myself, of course, but with that level of comfort and familiarity that living at home always provided, the veil of true transformation was still hidden.

This veil, however, was not slowly lifted when I arrived to college, but rather ripped away in a quick second.

I stepped out of my front door at home for the last time, and excitedly jumped in our packed car to drive to SLO.

I said goodbye to my parents for the day before spending my first night in my new dorm with my new roommates.

But once I closed that door, and sat with myself for a moment, the utter shock and panic struck me. The colossal change that took place that day, transitioning into this new chapter of my life, was one I realized only in that moment. This was the day I became familiar with change, real change. And soon, over time, I too, would become familiar with growth, real growth.

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A slow transformation, a buildup of confidence and trust.

A day goes by, nighttime washes over the city and hushes the noise of the afternoon.

Returning once again after a day of school, I would climb in my bed and allow my eyes to rest on the sights out my window. My small portal into the real world.

My great big window looking out to the street, silhouetted by hills and abundant trees and blanketed in cool, coastal weather.

I’ve seen videos shared on TikTok where someone shares a montage of photographs capturing the stark changes that come with every season. Highlighting the lush warm sun of those last days of summer, the autumnal leaves departing off trees and fluttering to the ground in fall, and mounds of snow blanketing the trees and surrounding landscape in the dead of winter.

I’ve always found these videos so fascinating: a perfect collection of the wonders of nature and its opposing seasons.

But, it’s almost too much, as I’ve come to recognize growth and change in more subtle ways this year.

As the seasons wafted by, through my window I gazed out at a sunny day in March or a calm night followed by a rainy morning. Hillsides of green turning beige as the month of June approached, and growing numbers of people out and about when the warm days grew more abundant.

The progression of time and cycles of nature through my window were unobtrusive. This subtlety was what made these changing months and the ways in which I captured that change through pictures out my window, more beautiful to me.

Because I’ve come to realize that this year’s growth, not only outside my window but inside my self as well, was slow-paced , quiet and deeply personal.

There were peaceful nights…

And rainy days…

Warm days and striking sunsets…

No season was set in stone, or revealed fully through my window. There were scorching hot days in March and thunderstorms in June. The seasons in myself were not raging either; there were cycles of high energy with days guided by a balanced mind, and times of deep longing and heavy sadness.

The ebbs and flows of nature are what I see in these pictures, and in my self.

The act of gazing out the window was one that required me to be doing nothing else. Unoccupied, I sat with my thoughts. And soon, creative flows of energy had space to run free, quickly landing onto the lines of my journal…

Returning home, and home to myself

And in this dorm I have been shown first-hand that with trust and patience, gentle care and effort, anywhere can feel like home.

It took me months for my space to feel comfortable.

With photographs adorning the walls, incense infusing the air and fairy lights soothing the harsh overhead lights, still, I felt as if I was not an inhabitant of the room, but merely a visitor passing through.

I would joke it felt more like summer camp, my mind telling me soon I would return home to Sacramento. But deep down I knew this to be untrue, wincing at the uncomfortable reality.

I would laugh when my phone began to recognize the dorms as “Home.” If only I could adapt that quickly, I thought to myself…

But without really realizing it, almost as if changes like these occur only when you finally stop focusing on their arrival, a place that once was nothing more than an ugly room with gross carpets, creaky beds and a view, became the space I longed for after a long day.

One I could drop into and thus, return home.

Growing As One

The initial move from my own room at home to a dorm shared with two other roommates was difficult to say the least. It required me to surrender bits of control over my solitude and space, and learn to coexist in ways I had never before. I can remember feeling drained in those initial months, as I pined for my spaces of solitude back home, and clawed for any time to myself to recuperate. But adaptation to my new environment developed, even when I thought it never would. By sitting with my discomforts and listening in on what I truly needed, I soon discovered new ways to find the quiet and comfortable spaces I could resort to. And with time, I grew accustomed to background noise, and to the constant company.

Canadian scientist Suzanne Simard, known for her fresh perspective and groundbreaking discoveries regarding the symbiotic relationships between forest organisms, and the vast interconnected networks woven deep under the forest floor, could attest to this importance of fostering human relationships in order to flourish.

The girls on my dorm floor, despite silly arguments and mini wars waged against one another, formed symbioses with one another, just like the trees form these close-knit relationships with dozens to hundreds of fungal species.

As Simard discovered, fungal threads link nearly every tree in a forest to one another, even ones of different species. While these relationships are so fundamental to the survival of these organisms, it was not until Simard and her research findings, that we were aware of this fact. By the same token, it is interesting that while human connection is pivotal, the complexity of our interconnectedness seems to be hidden. Almost like it’s on the subterranean level, underneath the forest floor of life.

This was the year that I found connections everywhere. I could be seen standing in awe wherever I was, noticing and internally noting the abundance of connections all around me.

Seeing this became easy. It was everywhere, all around.

Whether it be sweet families eating together and groups of friends chatting as they strolled downtown during the Thursday markets. Or music enthusiasts of all kinds coming together to get lost in the songs and mosh at nearby house shows. Or climbers, new and experienced, cheering someone on and collectively filling the air with encouragement as they crushed their project at the climbing gym.

Even if we knew it or not, many of the girls I lived with for a year were part of a special, interconnected experience. We shared this space, and together, in each others’ company and surrounded by love, we grew and we got through it.

We all came from different places, with different attitudes about the year. Many of us never fully thought about what that would entail. And that fact was quickly proven– fights and arguments about personal space to turning the light off without asking to sharing the mini-fridge.

But we also gave each other something to fall back on.

I remember at the start of the year, none of us really knew how to spend our free time. We cuddled around watching the Jeffery Dahmer series. We started little routines, found safe spaces to cry. We shared stuff, we accompanied each other to the dining hall when our anxieties got the best of us. We found spots throughout the day to walk together, planned weekend outings to inspire our weekday studies.

Some of us got closer than others. But, at its core, our floor was one.

And that was a beautiful thing to be a part of.

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Today it is June 21, the summer solstice.

I’ve been home for a week, and catch myself longing for more time in SLO. It’s grown on me. I’ve grown.

I choose to take growth by the hand, and follow it through the summer and into my new school year. Returning to my beloved friends and the very place I blossomed into my self.