Simmer Down.

Yeah, I was stressed about this trip. If you know me, then you would know it takes a lot to make me stressed, but for the past 3 weeks that is all I have been. Of course I have felt stress before, though usually only for major, life-altering events. I’ve been getting mad at myself for being so anxious for a trip that should be fun and valuable yet I’ve been having a hard time of convincing myself that.

That is until yesterday, the day before my departure. I was sitting in my friend’s backyard; warm day, pink sunset and a couple cans of beer.

“I’m excited for you,” said my friend.

“Really? Because all I feel is stress,” I replied.

“Going on this trip isn’t your problem,” he said, “everything else that’s going on right now is stressful and it’s making it seem like New York is stressful.”

He’s right. Going to New York for a week may or may not be a major, life-altering event but what lies ahead in the next month is. I’m graduating, a year early at that. I have a lease in SF to sign and a job still yet to be found, all while trying to finish strong academically. The stress I have been feeling every day is not the product of NYC, but rather the feeling of growing up. It happens, that is life, so it goes.

I’ll leave you with this, the serenity prayer, which I discovered through Kurt Vonnegut at the age of 16 and honestly helps lead my life with minimal stress to this day:

“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to tell the difference.”

-Sara Bagnell