A Full Circle Moment: College Edition

Preface: I recently finished Sex and the City TV show and the ending made me sob. I was sobbing because I witnessed a (yes, fictional) full-circle moment of someone else’s life and community but, it made me think of my up-and-coming full circle.

As I approach the final weeks of my college extravaganza, I see how amazing these four years molded me.

When I was younger, my Polish babysitter helped me collect stamps from around the world. With stamps collected from different locations and eras, I absorbed at a young age how beautiful the different colors, cultures, shapes, and sizes can be in just one little square. I look back and see how much this had an impact on me because it showed me the beauty within our differences. Despite aspiring to see all the colors, foods, shapes, and sizes the world has to offer, I see how I am coming to a full circle in my reality.

When I thought the pain couldn’t get any worse, it was just a bump in my road. When I thought my heartaches could drown me, it was just a bump in the road. When I felt the grief of outgrowing friendships, it was just a bump in the road. When I was overwhelmed by sweating so much because it was 95 degrees with 99% humidity, it was just a bump in the road.

I sit back and see how the trauma, pain, laughter, joy, and friendship these past four years cultivated are just a stamp on my passport. They are where I have come from with newly learned lessons and now, it is about where I am heading.

We are all a part of a tree. We all have branches that will direct us in our separate ways, but always down some road, we will be connected.

Our separate branches ultimately show us how we adapt a native language, style, and identity that suits us during the course of life.

I see the Chelsey who's walking out of the University of Miami as one of the strongest, most loving, and most courageous beings. I truly believe there isn't anything I couldn’t handle. I now see rejection and hardships as a success because it's one step closer to the direction I am meant to be in. What’s so mind-boggling to me is that I never thought I could become this. I didn’t know this is who Chelsey Jacobs wanted to become. I never thought I would be my own best friend.

There are so many people who have helped me get to this point because, without my friends and family's support, my heart would lack a love that is only taught through intimate bonds.

I sit here reflecting on the love my parents gave me. It blows my mind how many silent tears they shed and the mountains they moved just so I could receive everything I asked for. It brings tears to my eyes because my parents showed me an infinite type of love that literally helped me stand on two feet and learn to walk. Sometimes the love is awkward, but it’s love.

Not many are granted this emotional and physical state of love. Not many can even cultivate what this type of love feels like and it just makes me feel so lucky. The easy love; the seamless love; the love that at the end of the day, has no boundaries. My parents have and will continue to serve as mentors, warriors, and my greatest teachers (in both good and bad ways haha ;))

In college you learn a lot: There’s no need to feel jealous of one another. There’s no need to feel stupid. There’s no need to feel embarrassed. If we feel these emotions yet not identify with them, we grow. We can love these awkward moments instead of letting them fuel a fire that disintigrates our soul.

I hold myself in high regard because I know I am capable of getting through anything. I have already peacefully moved through a lot. I didn’t sign myself up for this life to not leave a handprint on anything that crosses my path. When times feel rocky, I hold my hand on walks and hug myself to sleep. I wouldn't be here without the person inside of me, literally.

They always say that life feels complete when you find your true love — your one love. When you find the person who exposes a compassionate, vulnerable, understanding, and goofy side to you. Through these four compelling years, I found her and I am so lucky to say that she's right inside me. I wake up with this every day and no matter how lonely I feel in life, I will always have Chelsey. I have learned through so many boyfriends, friends, and family members, what the best type of love feels like. All I have to do is be that way to myself and my entire life will be miraculous.

Beautiful people are happy. You can tell when someone is in tune with their soul. I feel like a happy little girl who loves her pain, laughter, freckles, curves, blue eyes, name, and psyche (which at first I loathed.) I am the only Chelsey Grace Jacobs and I am here to discover the best version of her.

Yet, there are no endings in life, just full circles. Nothing is a goodbye, it's a “see ya down the road.”

We end where we start and we start where we end. Just like how we come into this world with nothing, we will leave this world with nothing.

With everything being a full circle and all the moments I survived in college, I am so thrilled to walk down the graduation aisle with myself, and a powerful graduating class that is aspiring to leave their handprint on the world as well.

There's nothing I can’t do. There's nothing you can’t do. And together, there’s nothing we can’t do.

Xoxo,

Chelsey