What advice would you give your 20 year old self?

When I was nineteen (going on twenty)I worked at an upscale nursing home in New York. Every Sunday a fleet of black Mercedes would arrive to visit a patient. It was not until the end of my employment there that I discovered who they were. The patient they would visit was the mother to a mafia family out of New York City. While this is not totally relevant to this story, there is an aspect of it that launched me into my next adventure. One of the sons was criminally charged and this had a cascade effect of the rumored closing of the nursing home. The closure was shortly confirmed, which meant it was time to find another job. My co-worker, Mia, decided this was an opportunity to move to California and apply for graduate school. We had three months to plan our exit and a road trip across the country. To help with expenses Mia’s best friend, Raine, would join us and whom we would pick up in Pennsylvania.

For three months I saved all my money, collected money from being rear ended and not fixing my car and living at home. When it was time to leave I had one yellow/gold duffle bag with all of my belongings. The day we were set to leave, Mia’s car did not start. Our leave time was pushed up for one week. I was done with work and had to fill my days before we left. I started to feel nervous and to calm myself, I watched daytime soap operas. At the end of the week I was hooked. I also began to question my decision to go to California. What would I do there? Where would I work? How long would my money last? I like to think I was not hesitant because I was hooked on “Days of our Lives”, although it may have had some influence.

The day we were to leave, my mom drove me to Mia’s house. We said our goodbyes. It was poignant, as it had just been my mom and I living together for the past few years. I always cried hard at goodbyes and my mom was the type to cheerfully wave and never show much sadness. This time she teared up, but told me it would be okay and that I need to go. I had a moment, that if she was actually sad, maybe I should stay. My fear was gaining traction. But Mia was relying on me and we needed to be in Pennsylvania that evening to pick up Raine. We spent the night with Raine planning to get an early launch in the morning

Our destination was San Jose, CA. where we had a place to land for a couple of weeks. It was the home of Raine’s boyfriend Harry’s mother. He reassured us that she would love to have the company. I imagined a big house and her welcoming us with open arms. I was scared and this helped me to get started. Our trip across country was full of adventure and my fears were loosening. We laughed, stayed in cheap scary motels sharing one bed and leaving as soon as we woke up. Our last stop before San Jose was Disneyland in L.A. Things were feeling great and full of hopeful anticipation for the next chapter.

We arrived to San Jose in the evening. Harry’s mom it turned out forgot that we were coming. It also turned out that she was raging alcoholic. We could not stay there. Fear came roaring back and this time we all panicked. We got a motel, regrouped and made a plan. In order to stay, we made a quick decision to rent an apartment immediately. All of a sudden a commitment was made. It was a month to month rental, but I was still living day to day. I thought I could go home anytime. There were two problems with staying. The first was that San Jose was forty five minutes from the ocean. Moving to California had meant beaches and warm weather. Second, was that San Jose was a city and a not very nice one at that. My roommates wanted to stay three months, so in the end I decided too, as well.

Once we got settled, I took a job in a nursing home. This one was more typical then the fancy mafia owned one in New York. It was dreary, depressing and smelled bad. I was shocked. I loved the patients, though, and because of them I went through a Nursing Assistant program offered at the facility. Once I was done I had to return to the depressing wards, where the patients I had first met had passed on. I began to hate going to work. I wanted to go home. My roommates encouraged me to go to community college. I was not sure that school was for me. My deepest fear was that I was not smart enough. I hesitantly applied with help from the very kind admissions lady. Our three months were almost up and both roommates had planned to stay in California. To my surprise, an acceptance letter arrived. A big decision was about to happen.

I learned that a lot can change in three months. Number one was that my mom had made a plan to move to Florida. All of a sudden going home was not in my back pocket. I was about to face the fear of going to Community College. There were a couple of road blocks in my way. I needed a job and transportation. It turned out I qualified for work study and got a great job at the campus library. For transportation, my only option was a bicycle. I bought a three speed bike and rode twenty miles a day to school and back. Going to Community College turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made.

The process of reflecting back and gleaning what I can from these stories as I turn twenty, leads me to wonder if the advice I would give my twenty year old self, might be the same advice I would give to myself now. Trust. Deepening our trust and belief in ourselves is ongoing. We build on it from the beginning. Adventures take us to unknown places where we have the opportunity to grow and flourish. Enter the unknown. It is the only way to discover what lies underneath. This is where our deepest potentials reside. Change is what can take us there if we are willing passengers.