I'll be twenty-one on Saturday. It's a scary thought. Scary because, even though logically I know that I'm still young and "have my whole life ahead of me", part of me can't help but feel that I'm old. Older, at least, and that's of course true. But I feel younger than a lot of my peers, even the ones that really are younger than me. Today I've been questioning whether or not I've been living up to my full potential. Am I really everything that I can be? Is it possible to be everything that I can be? I stated thinking about the future a little bit too. I usually don't, I'm very much a "live in the moment" kind of person, but I started thinking about some stuff... a lot of my friends are doing clinicals for nursing majors and doing internships for their other majors and stuff like that. I have worked at The Chapel and that is sort of like what I want to do, but not really. I think also that I want to do some sort of family counseling or something. And I know next semester one of the classes I'll be taking will require an internship, and I am excited about that. And next year I'll be living off campus in a house, with three roommates, and I'm excited about that too. But this isn't real. It's not the "real world" - and that's scary. A lot of professions - and I think especially ones that involve counseling - take years upon years upon years to "perfect" (no one's perfect but you know what I'm saying). And I feel like no amount of classes or internships or whatever are going to really prepare me for what I want to do. Like, I LOVE my classes, don't get me wrong, and I learn a lot in them. But there is a huge difference between reading a book, writing a paper, and taking a test than there is giving someone actual sound advice, helping someone change a distructive behavior, etc. It's scary. I have two years left of college after this semester. I know I can grow and change and mature a lot in two years - I have the past two years. But can I grow and change and mature enough? Is four years (or in my case, 5) enough for anyone to really be prepared for life? Twenty-one. Twenty-one. That number keeps repeating in my head. I'm old enough to vote, to get married, to drink alcohol, to drive a car, to live without my parents. At least that's what government says. All I can do is trust in God. He asks that we love Him with all of our mind, our strength, our body, and our soul. I trust that in return he will give my mind the knowledge, give me the strength, prepare my body, and protect my soul as I venture further down the path He has set before me...