Kaitlyn Mazza

THAT GIRL

I wish I could be that girl. That girl with the car, that girl with the phone, that girl with it all.

For the longest time, I lived my life in observance of all I wish I could have. I grew up in a very well off area and a community that seemed driven by the new and the shiny. For the longest time, I thought this is what success was supposed to look like. My life looked very different from others I was surrounded by. I lived a very humble life and I never understood why my parents were happy with so little.

It was around middle school age when I first noticed the difference and at that same time I was enrolled in a new school where I knew no one. For the first time, I was pushed out of my comfort zone. And let’s just say, I retreated. These people were so different from me and that used to rip me down. I was comfortable around my family and the life I used to live but the new and unknown terrified me.

Flash forward to college. Me- a girl who had lived her last decade in fear of the unknown, was thrown into a new place with an absence of all I was familiar with. OH NO. I was not excited at all.

I look back at my old mindset and the way I used to view the world, and I laugh. At UGA, I have been forced out of my comfort zone and I will never be the same. I have met people from all walks of life and all with different visions of the future. I realized that I draw my own path to success and my definition of success is whatever I want to make it. So now, I feel as though I have it all- confidence, appreciation, happiness.