That was me

Sometimes G-d sends people into your life briefly to send you certain messages. Despite the fact that I’m no longer in school, as the school year comes to a close and summer begins, I found myself thinking about where I was last year and all of the things that have happened. It’s been one year since I graduated Stern College, (just curious, how many of you thought it was longer than that?) and as you can guess from the name of this blog, I quickly discovered that real life is not the same as school. And people tell you that the entire time you’re in school and you look forward to finally finishing school and starting “real life,” but like most things people tell you about, you don’t really understand what it means until you experience it yourself. Adjusting to change is a big part of life, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Today I met a girl who had just graduated college, and though our meeting and conversation was quite short, as we were talking all I could think was, “That was me, one year ago.” Although she did not attend Stern College, we had the same major, and we had a number of other things in common as well. The direction she chose to take after college was similar to the direction I chose. It felt as though G-d was whispering, “Remember what your life was like a year ago? It was a lot like this.”

Luckily, I was able to walk away with a positive feeling. When I graduated college I was so nervous for the future, it seemed so distant and cloudy and unknown. I probably would not have guessed that my life is the way it is, since you can never predict what will happen in your life, though it would not have come as a big surprise. It’s cool that I can look back at a year ago and note all the changes in your life, all the things that happened, the way things turned out, and all the ways that I’ve changed as a person.

This incident was all of 2 minutes, but just the thought, “that was me,” quickly led into, “and what am I now?” What direction has my life taken? Is the path that I find myself on the one that I wanted to be on, the one I chose, or one that I’m on simply because I didn’t keep my focus on the path that I wanted and now I ended up here? It was so strange- it was like a flash of lightning- *that* was me, but it’s not me anymore.