One Year Later....

It is crazy to me to think that a year ago on this day I was driving 10 hours with my dad and a van full of all of my belongings on our way to Missouri. This past year has gone faster than I ever thought possible!

I arrived back in MI on July 1^st around 11 at night! I was so glad to be home! Since then, I have been babysitting, catching up with people, working on homework, and doing a little bit of vacationing! My online classes ended last Wednesday so now I will have a lot more free time! At the end of the month, I head up to Saginaw Valley State University to begin my college career! I am pretty unsure of a major at this point, but I am pretty sure it will be something in business~ but who knows that could all change!

I have had a lot of people ask if I am glad to be home and the answer is YES! I was so excited to come home. I really enjoyed my time in MO and it truly was a wonderful experience, but I was ready to come home and be around the people I loved and missed so much! Not to say I didn’t miss home at all, but I really wasn’t as homesick as I thought I would be. There were days when I would see the pictures posted on Facebook of all the cousins carving pumpkins or decorating cookies together or see my friends hanging out and having fun without me and I would think to myself “what the heck am I doing here? I want to be there.” Then I would go to school and see my 20 preschoolers and know that I made the right decision to be there.

I don’t have a doubt in my mind that MO was where I was supposed to be for the past 11 months. And I have absolutely no regrets about leaving for a year. I think it was really good for me to get out of Fowler for a while and see what it was like to live somewhere else, even just temporarily, it made me appreciate how great Fowler is.

So many people have made the comment “you would have made way more money by taking a year off to just work rather than join AmeriCorps.” My decision to take a “gap” year was never about making a bunch of money. It was because I couldn’t make a decision and couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do with my life. So I looked for something else.  I wanted to do something different, take the path less traveled by in the words of Robert Frost. It was about the experience and being able to help those who need it. And I wouldn’t change my decision for the world. If I hadn’t joined AmeriCorps, who knows where I would have ended up.

AmeriCorps also enabled me to meet some AMAZING people that I wouldn’t have met otherwise. My roommates became my best friends and I am so thankful for them or my year wouldn’t be even half as fun as it was.

This experience also made me grow up a lot. I have had many people at school tell me how mature I am for my age and that they would have never guessed I was only 19 years old. I have learned so much about myself and the world around me. I have been able to try new things, meet incredible people, and go all sorts of new places.

I don’t know where I’m going but I’m on my way! So here’s to the future and whatever it holds!

Aubrey :)