This new design of mine has more to do with the fact that I'm a girl and like my things to be pretty. I mean, I
am a girl and
do like my things to be pretty, but when I designed this new layout there was more to it than general aesthetics. You can't tell but the background picture is that of a sunset over an ocean. A vast, dark, deep ocean. And I am standing at the edge of that vast ocean.
I am standing at the edge of a endless ocean, an ocean that I have not yet traveled. There are those who've gone before me but the directions they give apply to
their boat, and the way the sea was when
they traversed it; those directions can do little but give me a vague outline of what lies ahead of me now.
I'm standing with my toes in the sand, gazing out at this unfathomable ocean and thinking. I'm not moving, not making any effort to prepare myself or my boat, I'm just thinking. Thinking about all the possibilities - the endless possibilities - and opportunities that this journey is going to present to me. I think about how I got here, where I might be going, and why I wanted to do this in the first place. I'm thinking about all the things I'm leaving behind on this safe, dry land; all the things I've experienced, all the memories I've made. I'm standing with my toes in the sand, gazing at the ocean and thinking, and as a briny sea breeze dances past, raising the hair on my arms I realize that I'm terrified. The one thing keeping me from putting one foot in front of the other and casting off with my head held high is fear. A fear that keeps me riveted where I stand, with my toes digging further in the sand as if to root me permanently.
It's not as if I didn't prepare for this moment properly; I spent twelve years of my life learning all the things I would need to know, the last year of which I spent the better part of telling everyone I was more than ready to get on my way. But all those things I learned were in theoretical situations, and this - this is so much more real. Now I can
feel it. I can feel the importance of it settling on my shoulders, the fears - real and imagined - coursing through my veins, the sadness weighing on my limbs, and the excitement flooding my mind. It's all of these things that they can't prepare you for. You can walk hand-in-hand with adults for all of those twelve years knowing that you are secure and cared for. But now they've let go of your hand. Now there's no one to grab your arm and climb into the boat with you, no teacher to help you paddle, no parent to bail you out. You've got to do it on your own.
And so I stand here, looking out at that sea, that sunset. It's not quite time to cast off just yet but soon, too soon, it'll be time. And then it's a now-or-never, the tide will never be just as right as that moment. So I watch the sea - the dark, fathomless waves cresting and breaking on the shore. And I look at the dark blue sky riddled with orange and pink clouds colored by the sunset. And I feel the breeze teasing my hair and caressing my skin. And I look at the boat. And I breathe in deeply. And I take a step.
