I’m finally going back to school.

I am finally going to be studying English. Poetry. Writing. The thing that makes my heart stop and start and start and start. I am terrified. I never finish my undergrad degree. In the past, I experienced intense anxiety in school. I skipped my last year of high school and went straight to college, majored in something I thought I loved. I lost interest. I discovered slam. My depression was at an all-time low. I’d be late for class and end up skipping it. I wrote poems instead of papers. I was terrible to my partners, worse to myself. I remember sleeping so much, I got myself tested for mono.

Be gone, Self-Hatred.

Now I’m 26. I know what I want to do when I finally “grow up.” Perhaps, it has something to do with the realization that we never grow up. We are never done growing. There is no adults-only enlightenment. We are all on an endless journey into ourselves. And this time, this lap around myself, I know I deserve love and patience and a friggin college degree. I want it. I want to sharpen my craft. I want to polish my tools. I want to know my art as intimately as I know myself, completely and honestly.

Be gone, Anxiety.

This January, I will be taking the second poetry class of my life from someone that, Facebook stalking confirms, is younger than me. I have to trust that although she is younger and teaching (what I dream of doing), my life has brought me here. My path is not wrong or right, but beautiful mine.

Be gone, Fear. You have no place here anymore.