By Emma Harrison, Editor-in-Chief
This past semester, I’ve been pondering on what it means to be fulfilled. I’ve spent countless nights wondering if I’m on the right track to lead a long, fulfilling life. Who knows, maybe you get past the senior-itis in high school just to get hit square in the face with a quarter-life crisis as you approach your twenties. I could blame it on finally moving past those weird high school boyfriends, really traveling for the first time and having my eyes opened to cultures around me, or maybe even realizing that I had to grow up to catch up with this ever-changing and often too-serious-for-its-own-good world.
But the question still rings in my head like a church bell at noon: What does being fulfilled actually look like as a young adult who is trying to figure it all out at once? And, how do we find the ever-elusive and transcendent feeling of fulfillment?
My dad always tells me that school (whether it is high school, college, or heck, even elementary school) is the only place where you are often expected to be totally, fully, completely perfect at everything you do, AND have everything figured out all at the same time. From a young age, the social expectation to be perfect led me to spend my teenage years worried that I had to act a certain way and achieve certain accomplishments at the right time to be a fulfilled person. I cannot tell you how many countless nights I have spent worrying about my grades, jobs, relationships, and even how much I’m eating or exercising, just searching for a way to feel validated – to feel like I have made some sort of impact on the world.
So, let’s run this back and start at the pivotal point that prompted my quarter-life crisis (buckle up because I’ve been waiting to tell this story).
High school consisted of three things for me: dual enrollment classes, rowing (yes, like the Olympic sport), and work. I did all of this in order to do everything I could to put myself in the very best spot for accepted applications, scholarships, and official roster spot offers, to complete my ultimate goal: rowing Division 1 at my dream college, wherever that might be …and yes, despite what you might think, athletes can write too. Between the summer and fall of 2024, I took all the college visit opportunities I could from Jacksonville, Florida, to East Lansing, Michigan. I finally settled on the perfect college, Michigan State University, but something was still eroding the peace I thought I had found. I was struggling to understand why I wasn’t feeling like my dream had been fulfilled.
I had spent five years rowing for others, accepting that every command was a performance, every criticism a mirror angled toward power; the boat was treated like a throne and the rowers like props playing toward ego. I had spent five long years committed to everyone but myself, to others who cared less about moving the boat and more about who was in charge of the rhythm. Every mistake became gossip before it became feedback, eventually teaching me that it was easier to disappear and go with the flow, because there was no way I could be myself and belong.
I was not fulfilled. In fact, it was quite the opposite; I was rowing for all the wrong reasons.
But, on a green-scented, misty-aired spring morning in 2025, about midway through the semester, I walked into my dual enrollment English 1010 class deep in thought, knowing I would have to decide my future in sports, school, and occupation that week. As class came to an end, I walked up to my professor and handed her my blue book.
“Would you like to be our next Editor-in-Chief?” She asked.
I stared at Professor Heather Schroeder for what felt like way too long in my head. An odd yet peaceful feeling came to me as I smiled and told her I would think about it.
I was truly in between two paths that morning: live at home and go to Pellissippi State Community College or follow my so-called dreams of rowing collegiately and be $200k in debt. I really was about to bite the bullet and row for the next four to five years of my life but, as it turns out, that one question sealed the deal on my college decision.
I had already been doing some email and article writing for Imaginary Gardens, but nothing too serious, so I couldn’t tell you what came over me when Schroeder proposed the idea of me running the whole show. Nevertheless, by the end of the week, I had declined my offers and sent Schroeder a message. I am in, my hat is in the ring, I’m staking my claim, making my move, and formally putting myself forward.
I had thought that moving away and finding a new rowing team would fix the trauma of endless conditional belonging, that I would get out into the world and find who I was. But, in stepping away from what I had known all those years, I now understand that sometimes the fulfilling risk is actually disguised as the safe choice. Now, I know exactly who I am; I am working, learning, and thriving in a place that fulfills me from head to toe. Every day, I get to reveal myself in truth, transparency, and sincerity with a team that is defined by collaboration rather than competition; ideals that my high school rowing team was missing and, I would argue, the world is missing these days.
Imaginary Gardens is my family, and I am so beyond grateful to lead a team that shows up for each other in ways that go far beyond the work itself, allowing me to positively influence the lives of my fellow students by leading and leaving fingerprints that grow perspective one story at a time. I’ve learned what support truly looks like by watching how this team treats one another.
Now, I am not writing this as a ploy to get you to join Imaginary Gardens (however, if your interest is piqued, you can email me at imaginarygardens@pstcc.edu for more information), but I am writing this to show you that sometimes life doesn’t look like what we think it is supposed to.
I know you have heard it before but, as college students, I think we get wrapped up in what college is supposed to look like, making decisions that aren’t fulfilling; but, learning to live for yourself, take chances, and risk your plans every once in a while is fulfilling. That’s why college is such a revealing time for one’s inner self, because when we are forced to search for something that completes us, we often find something we didn’t expect.
I still struggle with it. But, if it were easy, would it really be fulfilling? The beauty of this situation is that it is a pretty universal question as we reach this age, and the process is what makes the outcome; your input will always be equal to your output. I am learning how to find fulfillment day by day and, with a free and intentionally joyful mind, fulfillment becomes a learned behavior that slowly but surely becomes autonomic.
Being a part of a group that you love certainly makes it easier. Speaking of that group, did I mention how excited I am to work with some of my closest friends for the next few semesters? It has been such a joy being a part of the Imaginary Gardens team, and now, it’s a joy that will only keep growing as we continue to unfold the stories of Pellissippi State students and beyond.
