You’ll never be treated better anywhere than a college admissions office. They WANT YOU. You represent tens to hundreds of thousand dollars and they’ll do almost anything to get you to borrow a bunch of money and give it to them. Want a shirt? Need some coffee or soda? Hahahaha your jokes are so funny!
I want to be treated like this everywhere I go.
The girl giving me my campus tour had three buttons on her back pack. One was a Parks and Rec. reference, one was a flower, and one said “Just show up.” That’s the one that caught my attention and I asked what it was about.
It was a reminder to her as someone who deals with depression to “show up” even when she didn’t want to.
Lots of things about that college visit stick in my mind. I have a free hat I’ve been wearing on cold days. I was blown away by how good the Reese’s Pieces peanut butter cookies were in the cafeteria. But the thing that has really stayed with me has been the message on that button.
“Just show up.”
Sometimes my struggle with depression gets awful. The thing I want more than anything is to stay home and do nothing. Maybe I’ll make it to the couch and watch TV or maybe I’ll just watch Netflix on my phone in bed. The world seems so overwhelming that the idea of doing more than that feels like just too much. It sounds like laziness but it’s not. It’s this “thing” that smothers you and messes with your brain and tries to run your life.
“Just show up.”
It’s good advice. Maybe I won’t be my “best self.” Maybe I won’t be as creative or as funny as I might be on a normal day. I can’t make any promises about productivity or mind-blowing efficiency but I can get in my car and get there. I can show up.
This has been my goal the last couple of weeks. It’s a small thing and even it can seem daunting but one day at a time, one foot in front of the other… just show up.
