Feed Your Butterflies

It's always a little hard to stop myself during the semester to stop, write, and reflect through this blog, but I am grateful for the times that I do. I have five days before I finish the semester and find myself sick in bed, knowing deep down inside that I pushed my body too much these past few weeks. It's grad school, so it's always an on-going challenge of balancing my personal life, my school, and my work, but it is always a work in progress.

As the semester is coming to a close, lots of feelings are starting to surface: feelings of uncertainty, feelings of excitement, feelings of hope, but at the end of the day, I know it is normal to have all these feelings.

Time and time again, I say that life is a journey and my journey continues everyday. Finishing up this semester, I know I am one step closer to finishing a part of my journey and starting a new one.

In five months, I will have my Master's degree.
This will be the biggest accomplishment of my life so far, one that I never even imagined fulfilling just a few years ago. But it is the closer that I get to this accomplishment that these feelings start to arise. Where will I go next? How long is it going to take for it to feel like home? Will I love my job? Will I connect with students? Is this the place where I will start building my life? And the answer to all of these questions is I don't know.

It's a bit terrifying, to be honest. I took this leap of faith a year and a half ago moving to Miami to start grad school and the time is coming for me to take a leap once again. It was my first experience moving away from home and I continued on my journey when I lived in North Carolina during the summer. It's gotten a little bit easier, the whole transition thing. I know what to expect. I know that I have to make an effort to connect with different people and start finding the places I like to go and things I like to do, but it's a lot sometimes. As I think about my next journey, I try to think if this is it. Will my life be filled with moving around the country to continue doing what I love? Will finding home be not within places, but within myself? When will I finally pick one place to settle down? They are all questions I think about daily, but they are sometimes the questions that I force myself to put aside.

Sometimes, you just have to trust your gut--and Feed Your Butterflies.
It is a saying I first heard from my NUFP family and I decided it was the perfect phrase to describe my whole experience: Feed Your Butterflies. It is when you're nervous to do something, but there is just something in your gut telling you to go for it--to just do it. I feel that a lot of times, people have butterflies in their stomachs and they don't pay attention to them and they're too scared to take a risk. That is the moment when you need to take the risk. It is a message I continue to spread and teach to my students--a message that my mentors taught me: to work hard, take risks, live life and--most importantly--never settle.

It is a message that I am writing to myself to look back on in a few months when I start feelings those butterflies in my stomach, feed your butterflies.

Letting Go

Before heading off to grad school, one of my mentors sat me down in her office and told me about her graduate school experience and how a main component of it was self-reflection. Through my graduate school search, she guided me through the process of self-reflecting and helped me to think about my purpose and how my education was going to help me fulfill that purpose. Through my first year of grad school and especially during this summer, I have continued on this journey of self-reflection.

After having my experience at UNC Asheville, I couldn't help but to realize a disconnection in my time at FIU.

I felt sad.
I felt homesick.
I felt lonely.

I didn't feel like that at UNC Asheville and I couldn't figure out why. I couldn't figure out why I had spent a year struggling trying to adapt to life in Miami and how feeling connected to North Carolina was so effortless.

I came to the realization that I came into both situations with a completely different perspective.

With North Carolina, I was looking forward to this experience. I was ready to jump right into my role and was completely open to learning new things, exploring, and challenging myself--and that is exactly what I was able to fulfill.

In Miami, I struggled with this. I tried to be more open, but now I realize that I struggled to let go. I struggled to let go of my time in New Jersey--but mostly--I struggled to let go of my time at my undergrad. In grad school, I kept looking back: to the peer leadership program, to my mentors, to my students. I didn't want anything to change. I wanted to make sure the impact I made continued.

I didn't want to let go.

I remember coming back to New Jersey in December and felt the need to try to meet up with everyone I could and felt frustrated when people were busy. I was only thinking about myself, to be honest and didn't consider that while I was gone, the world didn't stop and life went on.

Coming back this summer, I didn't feel that frustration as I learned to better understand relationships. One of my biggest fears moving away was the relationship between me and my best friend. We had been friends for 9 (now going on 10) years and I was afraid it was going to change. And it did. We talked a lot less because I was always busy with work and school and she was busy as well. At the same time, we are there whenever we need each other. We'll schedule a phone chat every few weeks to catch up and when we get together, it's like nothing ever changed. And that is when I learned some things are deeper than time and distance. This is what a true friendship is.

Experiencing that made me realize that everything's going to be okay.

Life is a transition.

Transition is about letting go of the past and embracing the future, but still remembering the lessons you've learned along the way.
It was okay to let go. I was holding on to so much for so long. I wasn't able to embrace what was right in front of me. This opportunity that I was so lucky to have been given. All because I didn't want to let go. And that brings me to the picture for this post. A quote by C.S. Lewis that I was told today over dinner,
"You have to let go at some point in order to move forward."

What Makes Home, Home

As mentioned in my previous post, part of my self-reflection journey this summer is defining home. I thought about it constantly while I was in North Carolina and realized the answers to these complicated questions can sometimes be as simple as we think they are.

What makes home is the connection.

It is an answer so simple, yet complicated.

I had a meeting with the Dean of Students at UNC Asheville and told her of trying to figure out the definition of home and her answer was as simple as that: it's the connection.

Now that I have a better understanding of what made North Carolina feel like home, it weird to think of it in regards to my future.

North Carolina felt like home for many reasons: the people, the staff, the community. It was just my type of lifestyle. I can't help but to think the lifestyle there is the way life is meant to be lived. It is calm and peaceful. People aren't in a rush all the time and they actually enjoy their lives on a daily basis--not just for a day or so, but just...it's a lifestyle. It makes me rethink a lot of things...where I want to live, the type of school I want to work in, etc.

Finding home has been one of my biggest challenges during my grad school journey and I think it's a challenge I am going to continue to face for a few more years. There are three places in my head right now: North Carolina, New Jersey, and Miami. It is difficult to sort out, but North Carolina was my home this summer. As for Miami, I struggled a lot (and still do) with finding that connection. And, Jersey, well, that connection is becoming less and less.

I'm somewhat optimistic about returning to Miami in a few weeks. I am starting my second year of grad school and I am living in a new place. It is a new chance to me to find that connection. At the same time, I remember the loneliness and homesickness I felt my first year there. Yet, I go back to Miami with a new perspective. A perspective of what home is and how I have the power to make it. I have done a lot of self-reflection and have personally grown a lot this summer.

A new adventure starts in a few weeks.

This Jersey Girl is in North Carolina!

It's been a little while since my last post, but it's been a solid five weeks here in North Carolina. My journey has taken me here during my summer internship and it's been an amazing experience so far!

There is a saying that goes, "Everything happens for a reason" and I believe me being here has been more than just an internship. It's been an amazing life experience.

I remember looking through piles of schools to apply to and looking at UNC Asheville. It was completely different than what I was used to with me always being in a large school and in a city. I remember sitting with one of my RAs and talking to her about there was just something...different...about the school and I so I applied. From the first conversation I had with everyone in the office, I was hooked. I felt an immediate connection that made me realize this "fit" people always seem to talk about. Luckily, I was offered the position and the experience has been perfect. It's everything I wanted out of this internship and more. I had the ability to work with an amazing group of people and supervise 15 amazing orientation leaders. I get to work with my co-grad who has introduced me to North Carolina and been able to work with our head orientation leader who is pretty much the most amazing student leader I've ever met in my life. No biggie. hahaha

In moments like these, I'm thankful for my mentors because they not only helped me to prep for this experience, but always guide me through self-reflection. Taking on this experience has been more than just an internship for me. It's been a way for me to pay it forward.

Ever since I was a Peer Leader, I always looked up to our graduate interns (we called them GIs). They were people who supported me during my first year as a Peer Leader and helped me to come out of my shell. They were people who challenged me in overcoming my self-doubt and they were people who were ultimately the strongest role models for me going into my grad school program. Even years later, I still continue to keep in touch with a few of them and they continue to support me on my journey.

I was actually skimming through my past posts a little while ago and I kept writing about Liz. Liz was one of my GIs when I was Peer Leader Coordinator my last year in the Peer Leadership Program. There were many challenges that year, but Liz always made sure to give me extra support when I was feeling stressed out and always had such a positive attitude that made me realize what it meant to be a great leader. It is because of people like Liz that I wanted to take on this role as an intern--to provide that support, but also challenge my students to help them to grow.

While the OLs were only here for three weeks, I feel like I was able to fulfill that role. I don't know how to describe it, but they were able to come up to me and make me laugh or tell me about their day or help them with concerns they had and it was amazing. I just think it's the biggest honor to be able to work with and help students. It's what makes me want my mentor's job time and time again. We looked up to her and respected her so much and just loved spending time with her and I couldn't help but to feel that--hopefully--my OLs felt that way about me too.

As the summer has gone on, I have come to realize that within the matter of two months, I will have lived in three states. It's crazy. This grad school thing really is a journey. I have come to love North Carolina. It's only been a few weeks, but it already feels like home, which is something I sometimes struggle with when I'm in Miami (and sometimes even in Jersey). Everyday, I think about what makes "home." Is it the people? Is it the culture? Is it food? Is it the weather?

There's just so much to factor in. Sometimes, I don't know where to start. I guess...it's just part of the journey.

"It Goes On..."

Coming back home after being away for eight months has been a little more challenging than I thought it would be. While in grad school, I thought about home everyday and missed it a lot. I would tell my students about the wonders of the great state of New Jersey and how there were just some things that were missing from Florida.

Besides things like food, the thing I missed the most were the people: my best friend, family, and mentors were the people I missed the most. What I think has to change for the future is learning to manage relationships from a far. I had a conversation with my mentor the other day about coming home. Yes, I miss people and I am trying to visit as many people as I can, but--at the end of the day--people have their own lives.

There is this famous quote by Robert Frost which ends with the following:

In three words I can sum up everything
I've learned about life: it goes on.

These are a few words that continue to play in my head during my journey. It reminds me that my life is changing as well as other people's lives as changing as well--and it is changing for the better. Yes, it is a struggle at times to not be next to my best friend of to not be able to give my parents a hug, but I think it is part of this whole thing called life. I am at a point in my life where I have worked hard for years and have been given the opportunity to go beyond my home to pursue my dreams. I am starting my own life and now it's just up to me to build the life I envision for myself.

One Year Later!

It's been almost a whole year since my last post! I completed my first year of grad school and it has been an amazing experience so far! It's been a while since I've written for fun/reflective purposes, but it is now something I want to start up again.

Here I am on the summer after the first year of grad school.

It's time for some hardcore self-reflection.

It's Been A While..

It's definitely been a while and a lot has changed. I have picked my grad school and am super excited to started. As I recently graduated, I started to clean my room today and started to take down all the certificates and started gathering all the things I've been given during my time at MSU. I had to stop a few times to just think about how much I have grown and how incredibly grateful I am for all the love and support I have been given.

Sure, I might have graduated, but I definitely would not have been the person I am today if it were not for my mentors. They all support me and really do take care of me when I need it. At the same time, they push me and challenge me and--that--is what I am most grateful for.

One my mentors recently accepted a new position and it was definitely weird to see her go. It hasn't been that long and I already miss her. Going away for grad school, the thing I'm not looking forward is missing people. I have established such strong connections which so many people. It's not that they'll go away--the just change. Change is good, but it's weird too. I can no longer bop into my mentor's office everyday for our morning chats and there's a little part of me that gets sad when I remember that. Thinking about that, I start to think about everyone else: my family, my best friend, my other mentors and how all our relationships will change.

As a graduation present, my mentor, Yosayra, gave me a copy of Oh, the Places You'll Go. I sat on my bed yesterday and read it. As I read it, I couldn't help to think that this is the perfect book for her to have given me. It's real. It talked about how there's good and bad stuff that happen, but you got to push through and believe in yourself and you'll be successful--and that's the message she always gives me.

Here's a text copy I found online:http://denuccio.net/ohplaces.html

Change is coming, but change is good...and cool. ...And I'll be okay.