If I have learned anything in the past twenty years of life on this Earth, it is that life is full of surprises and setbacks. We are going to be blindsided, we are going to fail and a lot of doors are going to be shut right in our faces, but guess what… that is real life, and these closed doors get us to where we need to ultimately be.
When I first came to college as a freshman I had this perfect idea of how my first year would go. I would get all A’s, have the cutest Instagram feed showing off all of my new friends, be involved and of course radiate the image that I have it all together wherever I walked. I mean come on… could I have been more naive? I don’t think so. As if trying to stay alive in my dorm room wasn’t enough; classes were hard, 99.9% of the time Instagram was putting on a show and I ended up quitting the one club I was involved in. There were countless nights of no sleep and times when I was so stressed I could cry. I learned quickly that whole “perfect first year” daydream of my life was nowhere in sight.
The best piece of advice is to not walk into college having the intention of finding all eight of your future bridesmaids by the end of your first semester. This will most likely not be the case. New friendships take time and energy, but know that you are nowhere near alone. Even if it doesn’t look like it, everyone around you is struggling with something too. Ask someone to lunch, go on a walk, study together, heck go to Walmart together! It is in these random moments that memories are made. Don’t stress, a new city doesn’t feel like home for anyone until they have made memories in it!
All that being said, don’t let this get you down. You should be excited for this new chapter! You are going to meet incredible people, you are going to succeed, you will finally learn that one game day chant that you fake mouth every Saturday in the stands and you are going to learn more about yourself than you ever thought possible. Freshman year, and quite frankly life in general, are all about pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, so you might as well start practicing now. Celebrate the smallest of victories and don’t give yourself such a hard time. I promise when you roll back into town after summer for your sophomore year you are going to smile as you pass by those places where you did those things with those friends you finally found.