Be Brave. Be Bold. Be You.

My name is Brittany Newell.  I am in my last semester here at the University at Albany, as a graduating senior.  From the outside looking in, I am probably what people would consider the “typical college student”.  I get decent grades, I am pretty involved in organizations, I go to parties occasionally, and I pretty much don’t have any part of life figured out just yet.  But one thing that has been hidden underneath the surface is my nerves, or my “anxiety”.

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Facing Fear & Rebounding after the Letdown

“There is nothing to fear but fear itself.  There is nothing to fear but fear itself…” I chanted to myself as I lay down hopelessly on my mom’s bed the night before my big Teach For America interview.  Now, I don’t know why exactly I thought Franklin D. Roosevelt’s words would be so soothing to my ears at this point in time, but considering I had tried everything else at that point including crying, yes, crying – I had no other options.  I desperately rattled off all the ways I could somehow skip tomorrow’s interview, just so I wouldn’t have to go through what I thought would be potentially embarrassing or humiliating.  I thought about food poisoning, fainting, vomiting, breaking a leg, and even faking my own death!

Well okay… maybe not that last option, but still, you get the point.

It’s All About the Love

So Valentines Day is coming up quickly this week, and I hope you guys are just as excited as I am!  Valentine’s Day is actually one of my favorite holidays, and not just because it involves an excuse to binge on lots of good food and chocolate…although that is a plus! Ha ha!  But, it is also my favorite holiday for these three reasons below:

A Little Help Can Go a Long Way

 

Being at the University has taught me a lot over the course of these last couple years.  It’s taught me the importance of diversity and inclusion, the power in speaking your mind, the strength that’s found in a community, the will to set and meet your goals, and the most crucial lesson of all, never be afraid to ask for help.  I say this to you guys now as a second semester senior at this University, with a very high tendency to run from anything that throws me in the spot light.

Nonetheless, I have been in plenty of scenarios were my own stubbornness and nerves have put me in more harmful situations that I would have been, if I had just taken the time to ask.  

Journeying into Brave

 

claim it.  all of it.  release what no longer serves you.  journey forward.  be unashamed.  be unapologetic. love yourself anyway.  – Alex Elle

The English major in me, has been obsessed with reading ever since I can remember.  When I was younger, it was graphic novels, mysteries, and silly paranormal romances. Now that I am older it is a plethora of different fictions, memoirs, and poetry.  This is why I have ended and, now, started my last couple of blog entries with quotes, especially those from Alex Elle.

She is someone whose work has captured me in a way that has reminded me of my own personal journey through college and life.  From what I have read, a lot of her work is influenced by the importance and the foundation of self-discovery, self trust, and self love.  And while I know I touched upon that topic a little bit in my last blog post about my love for Valentines Day, as I have been reflecting over the theme of my blog this past week,  “Be Bold.  Be Brave.  Be You;”  I realized that a lot of my theme is rooted in this idea, this mentality of self worth and self love.

Anxiety is Like…

 

“If you must know, this is what I’m scared of.  I’m scared that everyone else is more who they are than I am who I am.  I think everyone else just looks at the things they feel or think or say,

“Of course this is what I feel or think, this is who I am.

But I am never sure of what I feel or think…”.

 

This is an excerpt from a piece called, “The Anxiety Inherent in the Air” in a poetry and photography collection entitled “I Wrote This For You and Only for You”.

When I stumbled across this poem earlier on in the semester, I remember a feeling of “awe” washed  over me.   I had never read anything in all my life that I felt related to me in that way on a personal level.  I already knew I was nervous, I already knew I was anxious and even terribly indecisive (another fun fact for those of you who don’t already know me), but I think having someone else put it into words, and reading those words right in front of me…made a huge difference.

Somewhere Towards the Horizon

I hope I haven’t already
driven past my greatest moments.

I hope there is something beautiful in the horizon
That’s just as impatient as I am.
Something so eager,
It wants to meet halfway.
A moment that is diligently staring at its watch, frustrated,
Butting at the seams
And wondering at the seams
And wondering what’s taking me so long to arrive.

Horizon – Rudy Francisco

One of the biggest things influencing me this semester, is the question, “What will I do once the semester ends?”

Truthfully, I have never known what I would like to do after college.  All I knew was that I have always had a love for words.  I have always had a love for books, but poetry, as I have been expressing lately,  is something I really  just grew into.  When I was younger I didn’t much attention to it.  It was stories that that I liked.  Nonetheless, poetry has become a rock.

My Path is Bright

 

This last week I found myself making slow but deliberate steps towards my future, and it feels great to know that I am finally on a path.  In my last post I wrote about the impact of  meeting my favorite poet this week.  He inspired me to dig a little deeper and go for the things I want out of life, even if it is only for just now.  So this past weekend, not only have I have finally started my application to graduate school at the University at Albany, but I have decided what program and field of work I want to get into as well, though it may not be what you think.

Many of you may be thinking, “Oh you definitely applied to continue with your English students”, or “maybe she’ll start working on her MFA since she loves creative writing so much”. But nope, while these were all, definitely, real options that I have mulled over in my mind, I actually decided something completely out of the norm of what I ever thought I would be doing after graduation. 

Vulnerability

This week I noticed a theme in conversations that surrounded me. The topic of vulnerability came up not only as the subject of a classroom discussion, but also within the confines of a conversation I was having with a friend.  While we both agreed and discussed  how scary it can be to take that chance to open up to someone in that way, I surprised myself by also adding something else:

“I also think, it’s kind of empowering,” I texted hesitatingly, and ironically for the same fear we were just previously discussing.

I wasn’t sure how I would explain myself, and re- recording probably 5 different voice memos (don’t you love modern technology), I finally got something right.  To quote it exactly, this is what I said:

“Being vulnerable is terrifying…but at the same time I feel as if I have surrounded myself with people in college who weren’t as afraid of it as I was.  So being able to be vulnerable with someone now feels more of a testament to myself, than a testament to whether or not I can trust that person…” 

Brave. Bold. You.

When I first started this blog, practically 4 months ago, I thought I would be writing about all of the chances I would start to take since it was my last semester at the University at Albany. I wanted to inspire boldness not only in my life, but in others as well.

However as the semester started, and we were a couple blog posts in, I started to realize that my definition of being bold was not what I thought it was going to be. Instead of writing about taking chances, I wrote about rebounding after disappointment, love, the importance of asking for help, my anxiety, my various thoughts and conclusions about my future, being vulnerable, and of course, self-love.  I had no idea I would write about all of these things, and yet, looking back, it completely makes sense.