Am I really the master of my fate?

"When you get there, it will feel right." I can't count the amount of times somebody has given me this advice. As if when my nose breaks the barrier between the outside world and a college campus I will know that's where I am meant to be. It's almost as though the mere atmosphere of a college meshes with my own bioligy so well that, inside, I will imediatley know.

I have never been good at decisions. Even the thought of choosing dinner most nights causes concern! Like most AP and Honors students, I have been thinking about college for the bulk of the last year and a half. The list has fluxuated at the rate of waves in the ocean: it is ever changing. Colleges come and go, and none from the original list have survived the scrutiny. How could I leave such a daunting decision up to just a "feeling", a mere tingling in my heart, a voice that urges "this is it, pick here"? I cannot! Unless. Maybe there is a bit of a life plan, a map persay. Maybe my life has partially predetermined. Maybe somebody else has chosen a path I should follow. And that tug in my heart is really a shove towards that path. But then, how am I to know that is the right path to follow?

I have had my heart broken time and time again. I’m not talking about the conventional jerk lying and ruining my trust in men, but instead the sport that has been more alive in my life than most people I know. For as long as I can remember I have been a swimmer. I have lived a life filled with chlorine, goggle tans, and summers filled with less than leisurely days spent by the pool. I hav given myself to the sport. I put my heart and soul into hard work. I have let dreams fill my head. I have made plans for our future. Then, all at once, my world comes crumbling down. Red lights form into numbers, not the numbers I want.

But looking back, it's those times that have really shaped my life. Every time life tears me down, I want to fight back even harder. It's because of the negatives that I can achieve positives in my life. When it comes down to it, I think that life happens for a reason. We are shot down and broken, but we are not destroyed. There is always a way to patch up what is broken and heal to be even stronger than we started. Is the entire path predetermined? I'm not sure. But I do know that without every event in my life, I would not be the person I am today. So how can I trust a "feeling" when it comes to the biggest decision in my short life? It's simple. If I make the right choice I will  fulfill my college experience as I was meant to--filled with more early mornings than late nights. If I make the wrong choice, I know that I will find some way to undo the wrong. A knowing in my heart will guide me the right way. Really all that I can do is trust that someone somewhere out there sees my life in a far greater sense than I ever could. I see the right now, the seventeen year old life. They see the end, a life at eighty or ninety fully lived. In this life, all I can do is trust that path to know what I need. Life really is too short, why not live a little better if I know everything will end up okay in the end?