Dreams on My Doorstep.

Oh my gosh! What an incredible, fast three years it's been.

Finals just concluded last Wednesday, and my graduation last Saturday was one of the most memorable occasions of my life. 

I am elated, sad, and nostalgic at the same time.

When I came to Wesleyan, I was many things:

Just diagnosed with Diabetes, shy and unsure of myself, innocently excited for all that was to come.

I had graduated from High School and community college, and felt that I could take on the world and handle anything.

And I believe that - I believe I have a good capability to handle all of the challenges that come my way. But looking back, I never expected to be faced with the kind of challenges, hardships, heartbreak, joys and accomplishments that I did at Wesleyan. I'm struggling to find the best way to capture it with words now, which is saying a lot for writing-inclined me... ;)

Let me just start here:
These three years have shaped me in so many ways. I have grown up - I've learned that accomplishments aren't always measured in letter grades. They are measured in sweat, tears, and bloodshot eyes. 4 hours of sleep and passing your test with an "A" or "B" in spite of working 3 or 4 jobs to pay your expenses. In dragging yourself to class no matter what kind of other extraneous things in life are going on... in pushing through projects and essays and work study with all of the other distractions.
In learning that some things are worth skipping class for.(Yes mom, these reasons exist).

Growing is learning to embrace new ideas and listen. To consider other viewpoints and critically think about them and how they fit into your preconceived notions and opinions. What is the truth? What is correct?

 In doing a lot of things you never thought you would.

I started a business. I took Evolution. I learned how to talk on the phones REALLY well in admissions... :) I made enemies.  I stayed friends with some of my best friends. I lost some friends. I was in a car accident. I went clubbing. I did presentations in front of class with no practice before hand. I surprisingly NEVER pulled an all-nighter.

College for me was struggling with my Diabetes and growing with it and in spite of it. Really, I was kind of thrown to the wolves with this disease, being diagnosed in April and moving to Georgia in June. A haphazard whirlwind of teen with tangled fair hair, armed with a One Touch Glucometer and three boxes of Novolog, visiting CVS nearly every day up to my departure to check if my prescriptions came in. The lows that came as a surprise in school that first week of move in... running to the dining hall in the middle of class because I forgot a snack and couldn't get my morning sugars to stop crashing before noon.

I learned I hate grape glucose tabs. Most glucose tabs, actually, I've bought them a grand total of once.

The frustrating, guilty highs... so many salads in the dining hall... learning it's ok to not subsist off of just salad.

Senior year was one of the biggest struggles of my life. At one point, I was working four jobs, and life had a lot of financial and emotional challenges. I went through two cars in less than 4 months and I'm now on number 3. My blood sugars fluctuated from the stress. I was waitlisted for both graduate schools and didn't think I'd get in. I interviewed for one job and got an interview for another. Someone told me to make plans but don't fall too in love with them.
... And I actually had to teach myself how to do that.

God taught me a lot. God gave me almost more than I could handle...
one day when I was feeling down, I remember stumbling across the bible verse,

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." (Philippians 4:6)

God, that verse saved me. I stumbled across it on someone's Facebook status. I closed my eyes and repeated it in my head and felt the calm rush over me as I tried to soothe my overwhelming worries at the time of where my life was headed.

And it all came together, this beautiful mess of three years, as I stood with my class in Baccalaureate last Friday at Mulberry United Methodist Church, my family and friends around me. I didn't think I could ever feel more pride in my school. "Don't be afraid to fear", the speaker said. "Fear is not the absence of courage, but rather it lets you know that what you are doing matters."

And on graduation day, as my friends and family again gathered in the auditorium, the names of my classmates and myself called to stage, it dawns on me that I am going to forget a lot of the knowledge that I learned in college. And that's alright, because no one really cares if I remember what ZP3, ZP2 and the fetal hemoglobin affinity O2 curve is, or what the equation for torque on a spinning rod is. The point is that I earned my degree by pushing through, labouring hours on end, studying in all of my free time, sacrificing, learning to enunciate in speeches and presentations, do them without fear and translate my thoughts to writing and essays and lab reports. To be a well spoken and well rounded woman. What college did was give me knowledge, yes, but what it really did was refine me into a better version of myself, and for that I am truly thankful.
I am ready for the next step thanks to Wesleyan.

And I learned that it's these kind of things that make me, personally, proud to be a Wesleyanne. College - and Wesleyan - is something different to everyone. That's what makes it special, that's what makes it memorable.

"People are going to tell you, "the end is just the beginning!" Don't be sad! Be happy! Blah blah blah." Mary McDonough, our graduation speaker, said at graduation. "But be sad. Mourn. Reminisce. And celebrate the end, because with it brings transformation."

"Be a provocative woman in the original sense", another speak said. "Well rounded - dabbling in a little bit of everything."

All fine words of wisdom, and all reasons as to why I am so proud to be a Wesleyan Alumna at last.

To say I'm not terrified about the next few years would be a lie, because I am so scared and unprepared. But I feel ready for the challenge, and know that I will face these new challenges and I will learn to adapt and push harder than ever before to accomplish my dreams. The hardest is yet to come now, but my dreams have never been closer.

My dreams are on my doorstep, and I am ready to open the door and greet them at last.

Never has this been more applicable than it feels now:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

To the future!

Not Princess, Just Cinderella.

Sometimes, I feel like Cinderella. In the least presumptuous way possible. Not the princess... well, the other way around. The girl that wears the pretty dress and gets to lose herself at the ball for a few hours. But deep down she's out of place. Her hands are callused from work. Her feet have blisters. She hasn't slept for but a few hours. The "real" girl behind the princess dress. 

It goes like this: on weekends, my "normal" self is transformed into this satin-wearing, slippered princess with carefully done hair and makeup. Sometimes I have fairy wings. Sometimes I have a crown. I go to birthday parties or events for 1, 2 or 3 hours. Those parties are the only thing I allow myself to think of while they're happening. I transform myself into someone I am not.

Little girls and boys both look at me in awe. Parents and men and women double take as I walk by. "A princess! A princess!" little kids whisper to their parents, thinking I don't hear. "She's really real!" 

I feel like royalty - for a day or two a week, I am royalty! My bags are carried for me, children present me with gifts, random strangers want pictures with me and little girl's eyes fill with happiness. For two days out of the week, I am the belle of the ball, the star of countless birthday parties and events.

And then... I go home. Weary, so weary, I pull my dresses off, and wash or hang them in the closet for another week. I take my heels or slippers off my blistered feet. I wash the makeup off and there is my normal skin, blemishes here and there, acne on my chin or on my forehead. I have bags to unpack. I want dinner. I remove my wig or take down my hair, and it is stuck in all kinds of sideways, messy arrays. My back aches from sitting. My eyes are heavy. Face paint is stuck to my hands or elbows. I haven't eaten a full meal in hours, drove over 6 hours that day, or have been up since 6:00 AM. On any given Saturday, I have done anywhere from 1 to 4 parties, changed countless times, into different princess dresses, wigs or even as a clown and back to a princess. Princess dresses are strewn across the backseat of the car, I haphazardly check my sugar between shows (if I have time) and I always paste a smile on my face and give every single party all the joy and energy that I can put into it. Sometimes, I get low before a party ends. I won't show it, but instead I'll keep on making balloons and painting faces, smiling amidst the shaking, trying to keep my face paint lines steady. Sweat will drip down my back and my ears will buzz. When I finally have a free moment, I will politely, calmly ask for a coca cola or a cookie, hinting nothing at my plummeting sugars. 

As a princess, I don't go out of character at an event.

Sometimes, I'll entertain at fancy country clubs. I'll feel totally lower class! I get to eat roast lamb leftovers and drink cucumber water and delicate pastries (sparingly of course). Other times... I'll entertain in the not so nice parts of town. Outside or inside. Music blaring, kids running anywhere. But as a princess it doesn't matter, because at the end of the day my task is still the same - to make people happy.

I work the rest of the week in polos and work pants at the gym, or take errands to the bank. I wash my countertops, take my laundry to the laundromat. I go to Kroger. I pay bills.

I'm not glamorous. I live my fabulously flawed, human, joyful, elating, burdened, stressful and ordinary life.

That's the life of an entertainer - I have to sacrifice sometimes to put on a show. I am a mask, a curtain that covers the real Lacy Elizabeth Ball. For a few hours, I am me but not me. Everyone sees me different. I have entertained for thousands of people that will only ever know me as "Cinderella" or another princess. It isn't beautiful all the time, I struggle to pay for rent and food and school and work Easters and my birthday (sometimes) and I stay up late hours at night studying because I don't have time to over the weekend when I'm at work. I'll come home after working for 12 hours in one day and then go out downtown with friends. I push the limits of what I'm capable of and I pray my phone won't die so that I can find the way home from a party on the GPS and I won't drink anything all Saturday in case I don't have time to find a bathroom. I change while driving to gigs at stoplights. That's just the life I live, and it's as far away from "Cinderella" as you can get.

But then, I guess that's really the crux of her story, isn't it? And I'm okay with that. I, Lacy Elizabeth Ball, am about as far from a princess as you can get... but those brief hours where I get to put on a show and pretend, and the remaining hours in the day where I'm tired or struggle or worry or laugh, are the beautiful things about life that all together make life an amazing journey to live. And I suppose that Cinderella knew best of all that being a "princess" isn't just pretty dresses, after all. The smiles that I bring to children despite whatever extraneous thoughts or worries or emotions are going through my head - the joy of a hard days' work completed - laughing with friends or singing at the top of my lungs in the car and doing dishes at home -that's all the princess-ey stuff, the glamorous and the unglamorous. And boy, no matter how hard it is sometimes, do I love it all.