Tests

Sometimes, I don't like to talk. When I was 3, my teachers would run out to the car and tell my dad "Leslie TALKED to us today!" My dad thought they were crazy.

Do you remember that graduation speech that came out a few decades ago and has circulated on every radio station ever during graduation season?

A few years ago, I downloaded it. Then, I found the version with music. I would listen to it on constant repeat like it was a Britney Spears song in 1999; I knew it was relevant but wasn’t quite able to grasp why.

Like a catchy song lyric, one quote somehow got stuck in my head:

 “Do one thing every day that scares you.”

So I did. Because I am neurotic, this is usually pretty easily accomplished. Sometimes I call people and tell them I am thinking about them without worrying why. Sometimes I go on an adventure. And sometimes I sign up for $175 dollar tests that I am completely unprepared for.

Yes, kids. I am referring to the terror that is the GRE, a test that is too long and too quiet. The eery silence of the room makes it feel like it's always holding something back.

I find it funny that we spend most of our high school years attempting to prepare for the SAT, but somehow I feel nothing in my college career has gotten me to a place to feel prepared for the horrors I saw on that test. Absolutely nothing.

But then again, I don’t think it was supposed to.

            Today, I joined my roommate to spend the other part of my day desperately trying to conquer homework. Absentmindedly, I said, “This is nice; I feel so focused. I wish I would have spent more time in here getting things done.”

This semester is quickly going to end. My undergraduate career is quickly going to end. And somehow, after 4 years, I never realized the value of going to a place and surrounding myself with people that were attempting to do the same thing I was. I am learning. 

I am learning what it means to be tested.

            I realized that things are not just happening to me anymore. I am trying to make them happen. I have to prepare myself and forgo the expectation that anyone will prepare for me to be any kind of successful. I am learning how to listen again to what people are really trying to tell me.

            I don’t know if I will get into grad school. I don’t know where I will be a few years from now and that scares me. Still, I refuse to second-guess myself into an all too familiar downward spiral.

            For some reason this week, I told someone that life is too short to constantly question yourself to make other people feel comfortable. I think that my 3 year self understood what is in the power of silence. I think my 3 year self liked making my pre-school teachers uncomfortable. 

            For this reason, I hope no one ever gets comfortable around me.

-les