[the future is history]

I found this post from March of last year (senior year of high school) on an old blog of mine and thought I'd paste in part of it. It's good to remember where I came from and how far I have come. It's good to remember that I did something right, at some point.

i walked onto the campus of umbc and it took my breath away. not because its beautiful or huge or crowded or amazing in any other way, but because it was real. because i could run my fingers across the brickwork on the engineering building and it left scratches on my fingertips. because when the wind blew across campus it send loose tendrils of my hair whipping across my face. because i could smell the water from the duck pond as i passed by, portfolio clutched tightly in one hand as i anticipated the interview.

if i get this scholarship, i'll move out. i'll go to college. i'll be in a great engineering program with extensive internship and research opportunities. hell, maybe i'll even get to have a girlfriend, finally. i'll get to do all of the things i always knew i would if it killed me to get there, and they will be real. everything i will have fought for will finally be real.

i'm the kid climbing that impossible tree. i can see the very top branch, but the next handhold looks flimpsy, and i don't know if it will hold me. but all i can do is reach out and launch myself into it, because if it breaks, it breaks, and i will fall. but if it holds, i'll finally be where i need to be.

my fingertips close around the branch...

i have never been much of a dreamer. i don't know what comes next, but i do know that in the end, it will be me who surpasses the expectations of a lonely seventeen year old girl with her whole life before her.

[and i did]