It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. But seriously, my freshman year of college was a year of triumphs, mental breakdowns, adventures, uncertainties, revelations, catastrophes, momentous fear, and, of course, unadulterated joy.
“How’s college?” is still a question that I have yet to find the perfect answer to – it’s a lot of things, and saying, “It’s good!” just really doesn’t cover it. It’s challenging, it’s liberating, it’s intimidating, it’s the most fun I’ve ever had in my entire life, but, most importantly, it gets better every day. When I first set foot on campus, it felt as though my new life in Ann Arbor was just a trial run, and that I would eventually get to return to my life at home. It felt as if I wrote enough papers and took enough tests and proved that I could survive by myself, I could go back to the life I really loved (with the people I really loved). Everything that happened here felt somehow separate from my real life, like a summer camp or a very lonely, cold, stressful vacation with deadlines and community bathrooms.
But there’s a special sort of bliss that comes with feeling independent, like the feeling when you first jump into the water and it isn’t as cold as you expected. It’s the little things, like leaving just enough time to pick up a coffee before class – but it’s also the big things, like building my own schedule to fill my own time with what will make me better at what I want to do. It’s finally knowing what I want to do.
Freshman year was everything I expected – what I didn’t expect was how much I didn’t know about myself before coming here. I didn’t know that the Deep Focus playlist on Spotify could make it possible to write an entire paper the night before it’s due, I didn’t know that I loved oatmeal so much, and I didn’t know that what I wrote could actually influence people. I didn’t know that you could have chocolate chip cookies delivered at 3am, I didn’t know that I could connect with so many inspiring people, I didn’t know that I was passionate about feminism and our planet and art and poetry and Potbelly sandwiches and being able to use words on a page to illustrate what’s in all of our heads. I didn’t know that I would eventually love college. I didn’t know that you have to wash Lululemon leggings in cold water, I didn’t know that I would listen to Mr. Brightside and Stacy’s Mom at frat parties (and I didn’t know that my shoes would stick to the floor). I didn’t know that half of my money would be spent on Uber, I didn’t know that even when your heart breaks it keeps on beating, and I definitely didn’t know that I’d be brave enough to ask a question in a two hundred-person lecture hall. I didn’t know that I could miss my mom that much.
And now I do. This isn’t a trial run, this isn’t summer camp, and my hometown isn’t the only place I call home anymore. Coming to Ann Arbor was the most overwhelming, thrilling, and terrifying transition I’ve ever gone through, and although it was absolutely fantastic, I’m not going to say it was simple or a perfect fit or exactly what I thought it was going to be. There were plenty of times when I felt completely swallowed up by Ann Arbor and this immense population of people much smarter than I am. There were plenty of times when I felt like I wasn’t qualified enough to be at this university or outgoing enough to be in a sorority or self-sufficient enough to live on my own. I haven’t even come close to doing everything I want to do here; I still feel like a kid pretending to be an adult, and I know that I’m only scratching the surface of what this place has to offer me. But now, after this revolutionary year, I think I can begin to contemplate what I have to offer this place.
Good thing I still have three more years of this madness.