blogger profile

Meagan Bemis

Journalism Student at Eckerd College

I'm a fun loving college student that has been in the St. Pete area for two sunny years. I'm originally from Vermont and was culture shocked when I first moved down for school in 2006. I love the city and the beaches and I love the school. I spend most of my time being outrageously involved in schoo...

READ MORE

It's a long, winding road

Meagan Bemis

Over the past few weeks I have made some changes in my life. I went through the understated stress of finding and renting a home. Moved all my belongings (and my boyfriend’s) into it. Realized we were missing quite a few of the essentials to living I had just assumed were always there. Spent more money in that short amount of time that I have in quite a while. And, had the all too awkward “growing up” talk with my dad. 

So, my apologies fine fellows, for my absence these past weeks, life as I knew it was thrown in the air and I was challenged to rush around and grab as many pieces as I could hold.

School starts tomorrow, labor day. Just another fun part of going to a private school! I’m not too sure how to pinpoint my feelings about the start, I do know that it will put my life back into some sort of routine, which I have missed more than I ever though I could.

I’ll begin the process of starting up the school newspaper once again as well, this year on my own in the Big Kahuna’s chair – my nerves are eating me from the inside out, but I am extremely pumped to be big man on campus.  

Yes, I believe this past summer and this coming year will be the turning point into adulthood that most tend to shy away from, yet strangely I welcome it. There are times when a pb&j and Saturday morning cartoons may be a sight in my living room, but for the most part – Responsibility, I’m ready for you!

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but I am from a very small, rural town in Southern Vermont, where extended families live no more than a half an hour away and you are constantly stopped in the road by tractors trying to get from one end of the farm to the other.

This is where from stems my father’s unequivocal sadness for my moving away. His exact words have been, “Our family doesn’t move away!” While simultaneously assuring me that he knows this is what I have to do. It has literally sent me in a whirlwind of emotion. I feel as though I am the one who is betraying my family by following my dreams, while at the same time I feel betrayed by them to be shunned for doing what I want to do with my life.

This is not me being selfish and running away simply to spite the ones I love – this is me doing what I feel I am supposed to be doing, where I’m supposed to be doing it. I can’t help but feel that everything in my life has lead up to this moment of clarity. I knew the moment I crossed the Franklin Howard bridge into St. Petersburg and saw the most beautiful sunset ever in the history of mankind – that Eckerd College was where I needed to be and that my choice to not apply to any other schools was not a misguided one.

So, although the trip has been likened to a horrendous dash through the woods while an ax murderer chases me, I have done only the best I can do and will continue to fend off any and all who threaten my triumph.