Emotions are what make humans what we are. Our tendencies to associate a sensation towards a certain action or person seem to make up most of the reason our world continues to rotate. Your feelings towards something. Your feelings towards someone. Our days consist of a series of these sensations, these feelings. Would a day exist without them? Would our world exist without them? 

Would people exist without them? 

It's funny though, how conceptual entities work. We can't see it, we can't reach a hand out in front of us and grab it. We can't look in the mirror and see the word 'happy' or 'sad' etched onto our chests or engraved into our brains. We just know. Or do we? 

Have you ever thought about it? We're beings so imperfect, so driven by wrong decisions and false assumptions. How do we have so much trust put into our own abilities to determine how we feel? Do we even know what these words are supposed to 'feel' like? It could well be just another social construct. Another set of expectations conjured up by the masses that we all blindly follow and adhere to. Always conforming. 

It gets so confusing. They're open to interpretation. One word with so many meanings to so many different people, meanings that grow and evolve. Meanings that change through experiences. Meanings that change when different people come and go. Meanings that change each time you realize that yet again you've strayed from who you once thought you wanted to be. 

It's hard to determine where to draw the line that differentiates a real feeling from the idea of it. 

It reaches a point where you become so unsure if you're letting the best of things pass you by simply because the sensations are so temporary. Is it supposed to be so fleeting? Are people supposed to not be used to permanence? Or are you just too caught up in the idea of what you want instead of what actually is? 

It reaches a point where you become so unsure of when you became the way you are now and why you became the way you are now. Things were once so easy to grasp and comprehend. It was so easy to mean the things you say and say the things you mean. Perhaps it's always been this way, but as time recedes you just become more and more aware. You realize all sorts of things - the good become perfect, and the bad become nightmares. In-betweens don't play a role, no attention is paid to anything except the far ends of the spectrum. Life's too short to be complacent, right? 

Emotions clutter in the far ends of the spectrum. The fuel of our lives seem to be our feelings. We learn from the bad times because they crush us. We feed on the good times because they give us a reason to go on. 

But what happens when you're stuck in the dark where the good and bad suddenly jumble together? What happens when you realize that what crushed you wasn't so bad, and what saved you didn't exactly save you after all? What happens when your eyes shoot open when you don't want them to, when you see things you don't want to see? How do you know what you ought to do then?

I haven't been myself lately, apparently. Truthfully, lately I don't quite know who I've been. 

The end of college though feels a little different. I've turned the page on another chapter of my life now, and it feels a little scary this time around. This ending doesn't greet a kid or school girl anymore, this ending greets a young woman. An almost-adult. It marks the start of a buffer zone before I spend a significant amount of time halfway around the globe away from everything that I have comfort in.

The most important part about this ending though is that it forces me to come to terms with a version of myself that I'm still getting used to. It's only been a year and a half, yet in this year and a half, I feel like I've grown into a person that I never thought I needed to grow into. What I wanted for myself when I started, is not what I want for myself now. What I felt about the person I was then, is not what I feel about the person I am now.

I find comfort in reminding myself that sometimes it takes some time being lost to realize what you actually need to find. I find comfort in telling myself that feeling so strongly about things, whether those feelings have a positive or negative impact on myself, mean that I've experienced things that are worth remembering.

Things seem far too real now. I'm reaching the end of a road that I've always traveled on, and I'm starting to see the outlines of much longer routes ahead, routes that I've never set foot on. I don't know where the next stop is, I don't know where the next sign in - I'll only know when I get there. It's hard not to doubt if you're ever going to be ready for it, it's hard not to doubt that things will go as smooth as you want it to be or how you've always imagined it to be.

But then again, what is growth without doubt? How is it possible to ever come to terms with a new me without going through a big change?

A road I've never seen feels like exactly what I need.