College and Change
Does anyone actually like change? Change isn’t something many people embrace with open arms. You never know if change could be the best thing to happen or the worst.
My whole life I have wanted to go to college. When I was in elementary school, I bought a purple umbrella from TJ Maxx and I told my mom I was going to bring it to college. When I was in eighth grade, I wrote a note for my bucket list about studying abroad in Australia. I thought I was ready, I mean I have been imagining this fantasy of college for a very long time. Oh, how naïve I was.
When the time actually came to go to college, I was not prepared at all. Living away from home is not like Zoey 101, might I add. College is one of those things where you actually need to experience it to know what it is like. You can watch every single YouTube video and read every Pinterest post about what to pack and what it will be like but you still have to experience college in order to understand it. As much as I prepared, there were still a couple of items I forgot to pack and no YouTube video could tell me how college would be for me.
I arrived later in the day than my roommates because I was scared of this huge change in my life. When I was completely moved in, I did not want my parents to leave me. For the first two weeks of school, I felt sick, nauseous, scared, and alone. My friends from home seemed so happy at their schools and the peers I went to high school with seemed to be having the time of their lives on social media. Everyone appeared to have found their place except for me. My mom sent me articles about loneliness in college so I knew what I was feeling is common. Although the first week of school felt like it would never end, I ended up meeting one of my first real friends at the end of the first week in a program I signed up for. She ended up introducing me to the great people I now spend most of my time with and for that I am forever grateful. Once I found the right group of people and started classes, this change that seemed so scary and anxiety provoking actually turned out alright.
Even though college was not how I expected and actually dreadful in the beginning, this change was needed in order to push me out of my comfort zone. Leaving my family and pets was difficult but I know I needed to in order to grow. Every day at college I learn how to be independent and become more of an adult.
Now on rainy days, I smile at how far I’ve come under my purple umbrella.