Control

"You just have to give up control - you don't have it anymore, I do." 

These are the words Emily said to me as we mounted the tandum bicycle and left the house on Carolina St.  I was ridiculously nervous - my breathing was shaky, my equilibrium wobbly, and my nerves jittery, and my hands were gripping the white handlebars so tightly you couldn't tell the difference between the bars and my fingers.  How ironic is it that these are the words I hear the afternoon after my graduation?

This last weekend I found myself back in Bellingham to walk across a stage in Carver Gymnasium at WWU to shake a few educated people's hands and receive recognition for accomplishing the task of completing college.  It was a pretty exciting day; I had breakfast with my dad and his wife, hugged my mom, put on my cap and gown, stood in Red Square for a couple hours, sat in the gym for a while and heard a couple speakers, recieved my blue diploma holder (the piece of paper comes in the mail in a few weeks) and then partied with some really wonderful friends.  As the night began to come to an end I started thinking about what the day had meant.  It meant no more classes in Carver 110.  It meant no more rushing up Indian St. to get to class on time.  It meant no more hustle-and-bustle from one end of campus to the next with a cup of coffee from Vender's Row in hand.  It meant no more late nights researching in the library.  It meant no more office hours with professors.  It meant no more seeking out cheap textbooks.  It meant that I had completed my mission and that it has become time to move on to the next.

I think I have been coming to this realization for awhile now.  However, they are becoming more and more real as the days pass and it begins to sink in that my life as I know it is done.  It is time to grab ahold of what I am going to be in this next chapter - whatever that means.  And it is this realization that I cycle my thoughts back to the bike ride with Emily.  As we continued to pedal downtown I kept struggling to take over control of the bike.  Every time I did we would wobble a little from side to side, but that was about all my movements would do.  I could not change the course of the bike - it wasn't my job.

How huge of a realization is that?  The realization that I am not in control.  It is not my job to be in control.  No matter how much I want to be, I can't.  Someone else knows the way better than I do.  Someone else knows how to steer "the bike of life" (if you will) better than myself.  And it's time for me to come to terms with that.