Then "Blank" Happened

As I rapidly approach the end of my first semester of college, I am trying to commemorate my experience. To capture how each and every memory has added up to this change in me I cannot ignore. The catch with memories is that alone they offer few conclusions. No solid plot line, no spoilers—I did not know I was changing until I realized that I had.

 The characters of so many stories begin as normal people, and then one day something happens. “Blank” happens and it changes their lives. My “Blank” may have been arriving in San Francisco. Or it may have been when I decided to attend my college. Or it may have been when I started writing, what inexplicably and amazingly led to my wanderlust of the world. “Blank” could even have been driving across the Golden Gate Bridge as a young girl, wanting nothing but a life of magical red bridge moments. It could be one or all of those things.

But my story goes like this: my life was normal, and then “Blank” happened-- before I knew it “Blank” paved way for an infinitude of “Blanks.” Like the trunk of a tree hoisting hundreds of outstretched branches higher in the air. Who knew when I opened one door, I’d find so many others, already ajar. Every “Blank” has dripped into the paint palette of my soul and changed my color. My heart bleeds the brightness of a thousand San Francisco hill dotting houses. To take away one experience would be to take away the brilliant muddled conglomeration of my essence.

 In under a month I will return to Denver, to the family and friends I must inform of my change. I will return to the people that up until “Blank” knew everything about me. They knew my color, and they knew the assortment of doors to pass through to get to me. But every day of college I’ve opened a new door. I’m so far away from where I started that I wouldn’t even know how to get back if I wanted to. My mind floods every new room. My life is now a chorus of “Blanks,” and between every phone call home to my friends I don’t know who I will be. I’m the lead character of an invigorating story in which something is always happening.

So what will I tell people? I will tell them that I finally opened the floodgate to my soul and let a whole new city in. That magical red bridge moments are now my reality. That my heart has swelled as my world has swelled and it will continue to do so. This story is just beginning.

 I suppose I cannot commemorate something that has yet to be completed. So I will tell people that I am a beautiful work in progress. And I will ask what “Blanks” changed their lives.