It's not about the Destination

Moving here has presented itself with many challenges. When I first moved here I lived in an old farm house that had been converted to apartments. The rent was cheap and I knew the owners. The majority of the time there I lived on the Third floor... that's two (2) flights of stairs. Everything about that apartment was a challenge. Taking groceries in, carrying my school books or practically anything felt like climbing Mt. Everest. Speaking of groceries, I remember one time I had gone to the grocery store and I bought some milk. That milk was in a standard plastic grocery bag. I had other stuff too, but my goal was to get all my stuff up two flights of stairs in one trip. As I was half way up the first set of stairs that wonderfully made plastic grocery bag broke. No it wasn't the bread or anything in a box, it was the milk. There was a huge mess and I had to race up to my apartment and grab all of the paper towels I could find to clean up the white liquid that had covered the floor. I was so mad. Mad at those darn stairs, mad at the bag, and just plain mad at everything. However, my mom thought it was funny.

When I first moved into that top floor apartment, I wasn't alone. There was a family that was already habitating. I wish I could say they were of a human variety, but no this family was of the rodent species. I must say they were pretty smart. I bought these hockey puck look alike things where the mouse would crawl inside and then you would never see the mouse again. Yeah, those things just took up room on my floor. I hated those old fashioned traps and the kind where you release them seemed to me to be redundant. My landlord got me sticky traps. I hated those just as equally, but the mice of course they liked them. I felt bad...really bad. After I caught about my fifth mouse, I got a cat.

I have heard people say, It's not about getting to the destination, it's about the journey. It has taken me probably the majority of the four years to understand that. I have many stories like the two above about the mishaps and adventures of being on my own in the city. And all this time I thought it was about getting the degree. Well, it is about the degree, but the fact that it is taken me this long to reach it has taught me to slow down and enjoy the time it takes to get to the degree. The degree is the end result, but the journey I take to get there will be more valuable in the long run. When I first moved here, I hated it. Now, It's not so bad. I don't hate it. I have a good job, I do well in school, and I have a nice apartment... varmin free.