As our 2024-2025 academic year comes to a close, I’ve been spending lots of time thinking about how much things have changed since I started college, reflecting on the experiences I’ve had so far and anticipating the second half of my time at CNU that is still on the horizon. As cliché as it probably sounds, I am truly in disbelief that my college experience is already halfway over! I still feel like I’m processing the fact that I even graduated high school, and suddenly I’m about to be a Junior in college. I’m incredibly thankful that I’ve managed to make it this far, but I’d be lying if I said my sense of whiplash wasn’t extreme.
The most significant thing I’ve learned about myself since starting college is definitely that I’m a person that deeply values stability, safety, and comfort. So, it won’t come as a shocker to learn that I’m also not too fond of change. To me, change has always been as terrifying as it is inevitable, even when I recognize that it’s for the best. Whether it’s changing grades, schools, or houses, no change has ever come to me without being accompanied by its fair share of all-consuming fear. Don’t even get me started on friend fallouts, breakups, or family feuds that end with cut ties.
I mention my petrifying fear of change because it’s something I’ve been forced to confront in a more abrupt and unavoidable way than ever before in this past month. On April 1, 2025, my great aunt passed away. Our family knew that she was sick since late summer. My mom had taken on the role of my aunt’s primary caretaker in the last two months before her passing. She did everything in her power to emotionally prepare me and the rest of our family that my aunt’s death was imminent. I thought that I was ready, as ready as anyone ever could be at least. But when my mom called me to tell me the news, it was as if I’d never been told my aunt was ever sick in the first place. It was so shocking, so world-shattering that after we hung up the phone, I just walked in circles around campus for an hour or so and then went to bed early.
My aunt and I had a complicated relationship. She lived a difficult life, and the pain she endured that she never properly confronted or processed often made it hard to have her in my life. Still, she was one of the most important people in the world to me, and now she’s gone. I don’t know what to do with that. Since her death, I don’t feel like myself anymore. It’s like I’m floating above my own life, observing myself going about my daily tasks, but I’m not really there. And I still have to keep going to work, attending class, emailing professors, and staying in touch with family and friends. I feel so lost.
All that being said, I know I’m going to be okay. The grief is crushing, but in a way I’m grateful to experience it because it means that I had someone in my life whom I loved more deeply than words could express. And I think that’s beautiful. I’m also grateful that I’ve surrounded myself with such a strong support system. I don’t know where I’d be without my friends by my side to see me through this difficult time. I’ve already connected with others who have experienced profound loss in ways I didn’t anticipate. I think, little by little, I’ll start to feel like myself again. I don’t think I’ll ever move on, but I’ll keep moving forward. Change, loss, and death are all parts of life. Everyone experiences them eventually, one way or another. It’s terrifying, that’s for sure, but it’s also part of what makes being human so meaningful. We have each other to lean on, and although loss is constant, so is love.