POSITIVE PUBLICITY by Camille Mola

The end of summer always puts me in a little bit of a funk – and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t love summer. I think I get flashbacks of the nerves and butterflies I would get for the first day of school. Or maybe it’s because the change in the weather and season is right around the corner, and change tends to scare us.

The inevitability of change is a universal truth. The seasons, attitudes, relationships, opinions, homes, jobs – they all change. Change can be good or bad, wanted or unwanted.

I view change in two different ways – it’s either moving way too quickly and is happening all at once, or it’s moving at an extremely slow pace and I’m growing impatient. I’ve always struggled with this, as many other people do. And we all handle and cope with change in different ways. I know that College Camille would have handled it much differently than present-day Camille.

Worrying is part of my nature. It’s a self-defense mechanism – if I can picture every single negative and terrible outcome of a situation, I can better prepare myself. Perfect example: A few summers ago, my family was visiting me while I was interning in New York City when they said they had some news to share. I immediately burst into tears in a restaurant, certain it was going to be horrific, terrible news. Turns out, it was really fantastic, awesome news (duh Camille). As much as I love to try to consider myself a “go-with-the-flow” person, in most cases like the one above, I’m really not.

And while my anxiety has dramatically improved since being first diagnosed many years ago, it’s still there lurking in the background.

It’s taken me years to learn how to handle change, and now I handle it better than I ever have before. I’ve learned to accept and acknowledge change –  I can’t fight it, I can’t change the change. In the past, the more I tried to ignore or resist it, the worse it got. I have to release control of the change, appreciate the positives, and move forward.

This post is stemming from a lot of new adjustments in my life and my friends lives right now. Many of my pals either have moved or are about to move to new cities, start new jobs – all great, wonderful and exciting things. But still pretty nerve-wracking and will take time to get used to. There are also so many other people who are just starting college or new schools. And if there’s one thing I can tell anyone who has just started college and is freaking out – it’s that everything will be OK, this is only temporary. Please trust me on this.

If you’re going through your own transitional time and you’re not quite sure how you feel about it, remember that it will pass. Good things can and will happen. Continue to keep your focus, stay resilient and ride it out – it won’t last forever

I feel as if I may have rambled through this entire post (and points to you if you didn’t cringe with how much I used the word ‘change’!”). My thoughts are flying, and maybe this was a way to cope with the changes in my own life. I’ll just repeat to myself – “Everything will be OK, this is only temporary.”

Of the little we have left, I wish you the best rest of your summer, and I’ll see you in September. Take care of yourself and be well. <3

If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living. – Gail Sheehy

Thank you Mimi for sharing this post on your blog here. <3