I Just Haven’t Met You Yet

“And I know some day that it'll all turn out / You'll make me work so we can work to work it out / And I promise you kid that I’ll give so much more than I get / I just haven't met you yet” –Michael Bublé, “Haven’t Met You Yet”

This isn’t a blog dedicated to some mysterious boy I haven’t met yet who I anticipate will sweep me off my feet and bring order to my chaotic world.

No, this is much better.

Because the person I haven’t met yet is, well, me.

I’m fully convinced that I’m not yet the person I’m going to be. Looking back on the last 4 years of undergrad, I know the girl who graduated from JSU is not the same girl who started her freshman year there. She grew up and changed and discovered so much about herself. And I know the young woman who graduates from K-State in 2020 will not be the same young woman who’s typing this post

And that’s so exciting. I can’t wait to meet her and see how far we’ve come.

I’ve been kicking around starting a blog for a while. I miss writing, and I’m terrible at keeping a journal (which makes no sense, I know), so I figured that, since I’m already on my laptop most of the day, anyway, I might as well write something for me. Talking and writing, for me, have always been a way of processing, and, boy, do I have a lot to process right now: a cross-country move, grad school, weddings and break ups and changing friendship dynamics, the realization that some of the happiest moments of my life are just memories that I can’t experience again. Maybe it’s the chill of autumn in the air, but I’ve been feeling so bittersweet about everything lately, and the only way I keep what’s left of my sanity is by telling myself that one day I’ll be able to look back on my struggles and see how they introduced me to a new and wonderful “Katie.” “Growing pains,” I call them.

Because, already, I see it happening.  I wore dark purple lipstick and a baseball cap and a cutoff sweatshirt and tennis shoes in public. I posted selfies and admitted that I looked cute. I go on long rants about things I love and don’t apologize for it. I tell the people I love that I love them—sometimes completely out of the blue in long, motivational Facebook messages. I have so many wonderful layers to my personality and so many different styles and so much to give, and I realize that I’ve only been showing one or two of them in the past. I’ve been filtering myself to be “less intense” or “less clingy” or “calmer” all because that’s what I thought people expected of me. It wasn’t a problem, per say. I didn’t mind. It wasn’t like I was giving up the very essence of my being. But something has changed in me recently, and I can’t exactly explain what or why or how it happened. I feel like the sun is coming out when I didn’t realize it was dark, and I have the freedom to express different parts of me. Maybe it’s distance. Maybe it’s age. Maybe it’s because paying bills and making phone calls and filling my own prescriptions has made me more confident in this whole adulting thing.

But there's a new and improved Katie on the horizon.

I know she’s there.

I just haven’t met her yet.

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