Moving away to college has been in the back of my mind for as long as I can remember when I saw my older cousins going off to these random places and only coming back for Christmas and summer breaks. As of last year as I started my college application process, this thought was beginning to become my reality. Fast forward to three weeks ago, the week before classes began, I found myself drowning in a puddle of tears wanting nothing more than to go back home. College move in day is something that is portrayed in movies as a chaotic whirlwind of emotions and stress. When it was finally my time to move in, I soon understood why Britney shaved her head in 2007.
The decision to go out of state was easy and difficult all at the same time for me. While growing up in Omaha, Nebraska, I knew from a very early age I wanted to avoid the conventional lifestyle that most people take: go to school in Nebraska, get a job, get married, have kids and become a stay at home mom. Although I have nothing against women who chose this secure path, I want to be able to experience more than what Nebraska/ the Midwest has to offer. I ultimately chose KU because it was the perfect distance away from home and our amazing journalism program. Since Omaha is only three hours away from Lawrence, I assumed that the transition would be relatively seamless and I would not get homesick. I was dead wrong.
Personally, the biggest factor that would make me stay home would be family. I have a huge family of 20 cousins, who are relatively the same age, and we are all super close. From spending nearly every day together in the summer to seeing each other every Husker saturday, I knew leaving them would be the hardest hurdle to overcome. When the time finally came, the final goodbye was something out of a movie it was so emotional- even though I’m moving three hours away. On the drive down, the only thing that was going through my head was a scene from Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird (2017) where Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) is driving around her Sacramento, her hometown, for the last time before leaving for college. She began to see things that she had never noticed before as well as began to appreciate all of the places that she had been to million of times before.
Similarly to Lady Bird, all I wanted to do was to break out of my personal norm and to find a new location/ community where I can flourish by myself. After realizing all of the things that I have back home, I appreciate my family, friends and even my favorite road with the best scenery a whole lot more. Although I miss my personal routine and norms back home, I have met so many different people and have created friendships that will last a lifetime. During the first week, which was also recruitment week, my floor and I were all in the same recruitment group. We all soon became inseparable and we often find ourselves saying “How did we get so lucky?” and “I’ve never felt this close with people before”.
All in all, the transition from Omaha to Lawrence was full of mental breakdowns and too many tears to count. However, this adjustment has pushed me to transform myself into the person I’ve always wanted to become- without the outside influences of home. As of right now, I can confidently say that I can confidently say that I am no longer that 2007 Britney Spears that I was three weeks ago, I am now the confident, happy Britney of 2019 who posts videos of her dancing for the world to see.