From my 21 years of life, I’ve learned how important it is to find things that inspire you. Whether that’s people, places, things, a quote from a book, or even something you can’t quite grasp with your hand. This spring, I was inspired by the word growth. Maybe the flowers I always graze past at Trader Joe’s influenced me to choose this word, but growth felt fitting. There just seems to always come a time in our lives when our environment or situation forces us to evolve.
A little bit about me
My name is Lexi Almeido and I’ll be entering my senior year at Boise State. While at Boise State I’ve been a member of the Mane Line Dance Team as well as Alpha Chi Omega. Dancing has been a part of my life since I was two years old, so as I decided on Boise State, I knew that I wanted to audition for the team. Being in a sorority was a way for me to meet people and make friends outside of dance. Getting involved in philanthropies and volunteering at home, I knew I wanted to continue that through Boise State. And this past year, I had the opportunity to become the Sports and Recreation Reporter for The Arbiter and was promoted to the Sports and Rec Editor for this upcoming year. I love writing and I love being involved with Boise State, which is what brought me here, writing to you.
As a media arts/journalism major, I’ve become accustomed to journalistic writing, especially working in sports. Creative writing was a new step for me and something I’m still grasping and trying to get better at. So bear with me as I’m still learning and making this a fit for me.
Seeing growth in my life
A couple weeks ago, I watched my best friend walk across the graduation stage, receive her degree and move away from Boise to start the next chapter of her life. And let me tell you, it sucked. Of course, I was extremely happy for her. She was starting an official job and then heading to law school. But having someone so important in your life no longer be a part of your everyday routine is a big change. I’ll no longer be able to walk across the street to her house and have a movie night. Or go on late-night ice cream runs. One of our favorite things to do was to go out to dinner during happy hour and get half off appetizers. We went so often that we started to become friends with the servers. I think my biggest fear wasn’t that I wouldn’t be able to do those things with other people. It was that those experiences wouldn’t be the same anymore.
For me, I needed to realize that my best friend is no longer living in Boise. But there are still people here that I can begin building friendships with. It’s not always comfortable for me to be the one to reach out to people first, but it puts me outside of my comfort zone. As American author Neale Donald Walsch says, “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” Stepping out of that comfort zone can be intimidating, but it allows us to experience life in a different way than we are probably used to.
I also understand that although my best friend may not be in Boise, I’m still able to talk and communicate with her. An opportunity may even present itself to go visit her in the future. Just because the friendship isn’t localized doesn’t mean that it suddenly ends.
Seeing growth in my skills
Although I’ve been loving this new job so far, it’s been a learning process and a different style of writing that I’m not used to. I’ve gotten comfortable in journalistic writing and it’s taken a lot of practice and rewriting, but practicing a different style of writing is an opportunity for me to grow and get stronger in all aspects of writing.
The biggest thing I’ve noticed is that things that make me grow or challenge me are always difficult at first, but as I begin to learn more, the task becomes a little easier. Sometimes it’s about sticking with it and taking every opportunity to grow from that experience.
What I’ve learned
Being involved in different things, I’ve learned that not all areas of your life are going to challenge you to grow at the same time. I may be growing in dance and my current job position, but am sitting in a good place in my sorority. It’s not a bad thing to be growing in one thing and not the other.
During my first year of college, I was able to accomplish things I never thought possible, but sophomore year was a year of sitting back and enjoying where I was. It was a time of focusing on being grounded. My junior year rattled my world and changed my perspective on many things. Growth is a pattern and when you begin to see growth or change in your life, it’s good to be able to acknowledge and accept it. Whatever it may be for you, I challenge you to find something that inspires and challenges you to grow.
– Lexi Almeido