Life After High School

After spending a year away at college, I come home and gaze intently on my image reflected in the bathroom mirror.
I observe every feature of myself as if seeing a strange, unknown species for the first time.
I was ignorant to the ways in which college has changed me until I came back to the home that used to be so familiar to me.
It is unsettling to stand in the same place I stood a year ago and be so severely changed while my surroundings have remained almost untouched.
Looking in wonder at my reflection, I think my inward changes have radiated themselves on my outward appearance as well.
Maybe not in an obvious way- my hair, nose, and eyes still look the same- but in quiet, subservient ways, like a more worldly gleam in my eyes, or a less eager, less childish upward turn in the corners of my smile.
Who is this person staring back at me in the mirror in the bathroom?
I am horrified to find myself asking this question.
To leave everything I've ever known and live in a place where no one knows the sound of my voice is like hurling a small stone into the depths of the ocean and expecting it to find its way back just as easily.
It will have endured so many rubs against the ocean floor it will look just like the sand at the bottom of the ocean, and you will be lucky if it ever returns at all.
Going to college, where no one knows the stereotypes that followed me in high school, gives me the possibility to be whoever I want to be.
Thus introduces the question: Who am I to be?
Not completely satisfied with my high school experiences, I cannot exactly follow the outline of the person I once was.
With new surroundings I add new aspects to my personality.
I fit into the world I chose when I filled out my college application.
But now coming home reminds me of all the little things that were once so important to me, but now do not mean so much.
It reminds me of the life I had only 365 days ago.
I feel as though I do not properly fit into this home the way I used to fit so flawlessly.
I am 19 years old, still a teenager, but only for a short while longer.
Looking into the mirror, I feel centuries older than the last time I looked in this same mirror.
My looks have not changed so much, but nevertheless I feel it deep inside.
The person I was in high school is gone, and a new person has emerged to lead me one step closer to the person I am to become tomorrow.