A New Start--Melissa

 Eighteen years. Eighteen years I have lived and grown in California. A few months ago it was time for me to choose what I wanted to do for the next four years. It was scary to think I was going to have to leave all my friends and family behind as I continued on with my life. It was one of the scariest decisions of my life, but in January I had made the final decision, to move halfway across the country. Houston is a far place that I had never been to, but it seems as if it is the perfect fit for me. I finally visited Houston and my home for the next four years this month. I had to travel alone for the first time ever. It was the first time I felt like an actual adult since I turned eighteen. I was terrified. Meeting new people. A new state. A new environment. Once I arrived in Houston I couldn’t believe how terrified I was. It was amazing. I was so proud of the choice I made. I got to Houston and met my built in family. The entire team and coaching staff was so welcoming and it made my heart warm. I only spent three days there, but that was all I needed to know I would do fine there. The entire weekend I spent smiling as I walked, absorbing everything. The campus was huge and I had to learn where everything was in one tour. It was crazy, but all of my hard work paid off. The soccer team all seemed so committed to their program and I knew that is exactly what I had wanted since college soccer became a dream of mine. This dream took a lot of work and energy for many years. I have spent the last three to four years stressing and training at soccer six times a week. I would be exhausted trying to work towards the day I committed, but once that day came, everything I did in the past seemed so small. This dream is soon becoming reality. I watched one of their training sessions and lived through a day in the life of a division one soccer player. When it was time for me to go home I was extremely despaired. I came home and continued the same life I had lived for eighteen years. As the time comes down to less than five months until I start a new life, I am extremely excited, yet also extremely miserable. In only five months, I will no longer live with my parents or see my friends whenever I would like. I can only text them, or lose connection with my friends all together. It is crazy to think I will never speak to the people I have seen almost everyday for years. I have to get into a new habit of having to do everything alone and make my own decisions for everything. The hardest part will be leaving my family behind to live the same life they have lived for many years. The hardest thing I heard from my trip to my college was that my parents will have to live through the same routine they live through now, while I will be off starting a new exciting adventure. As I will not be thinking about my past life at home, which will take my mind off of missing my family. However, they have to live everyday with a hole from where I was everyday. This will make my absence so much harder for them than it will be for me. This made me tear up, thinking that soon there will no longer be my talks with my dad at eleven pm when I get home from soccer practice and we just talk about our days. There will no longer be boring talks about my mom's work everyday at five pm. There will be no more pets to greet and jump on me when I get home from school and soccer practice everyday. Their lives will feel empty as their youngest child leaves the house. Whereas, I will be taken over by the excitement and craziness of being a full-time college student athlete. I cannot imagine the facetime calls from my family when they miss me, or the facetime calls when my family is at a family gathering and I am the only one not there. This will be so new, as I am the first in my family to move away for college. With all of this being said, the new start is exactly what I am needing. After eighteen years in the same environment, I need to meet new people and learn how to be an adult by myself. I will get to surround myself with people who have the same interests and desires as I do. I not only get to focus on getting myself a job in the medical field, but spend four years playing for my school. I am already in contact with my future teammates and rooting for our school in all of their activities like the men's basketball team in March Madness. In less than five months, I will be over 1,200 miles away from everyone I know and love. With that being said, I have never been more ready and excited for the new life I have ahead of me, knowing everything I have done in my eighteen years has allowed me the opportunity to play college soccer and prepare myself for a job in the medical school. Here’s to a new start.