21

I was drunk for the first time.

Yes, off of Sparkling Apple Cider. My parents knew that although I was old enough to drink (and I did too), I chose to not drink. Many times throughout college, I was tempted to drink, but I refused to be the girl who needed to know what being drunk felt like. I was reminded I had watched alcoholism change people I loved, and I wasn’t willing to give it the chance to change me.

This is the girl who spread her wings and soared in college, joining organizations and meeting new people every day. A girl who worked hard for others to not just walk past her and know nothing about her. People were going to know her. What I did not realize is how thin I would stretch myself in this season with everything on my plate, including my personal life. I’d begun to learn that “No” was a complete sentence but failed to utilize it. But why say that? 

I was just starting to become. 

This version of myself believed that I could prove myself worthy of whatever I was doing at the moment. That I was hardworking. Again, deep down, I was barely holding myself together. Staying strong for everyone around me. I wanted to be seen. Not for who I was, but for everything I could do. But by whom? People? Twenty-one, why spend so much of your life trying to be noticed by people when you were already fully known by your Father in Heaven? The One who knit you together. The One who calls you His. The One who knows every hair on your head. That Father. I spent so much of that year trying to get people to see me, never realizing I had always been fully known by my Father.