It seems so exciting; your life is just starting. You say goodbye to all of your friends from home. You and your parents pack up the car and finish your last minute checklist. You arrive in Greencastle, and you’re greeted by girls in yellow shirts dancing with signs. They tell you to turn right and head toward the dorms. There are people everywhere telling you to do a million different things: get your ID, get your key, unload the car, find your room and start settling in. You feel intimidated in this new place with new faces. Your parents leave that evening and you basque in the feeling of newfound independence. You soak it all in.
Wednesday comes and classes jump right in. Professors waste no time in assigning you homework and reading assignments. There is tons and tons of reading. You start to realize that this isn’t quite like high school, and you’re not going to flow right through. But it’s new for everyone, so you’re not alone. You adjust to your classes after you decide maybe calculus was just too tough for you. You have meetings with your advisor and try to figure out what classes to take.
Before you know it, your first tests comes along. Maybe you don’t get the grade you want, but there’s still time to fix that. You’re only two weeks into the semester. You are still a newbie at all this “adulting stuff.” You try to settle into a routine of going to workout, finding clubs, socializing and doing homework. There’s some trial and error but you slowly settle in.
Eventually, the homesickness creeps in. You lay in bed at night and think about your dog that would always sleep with you back home. You wake up and miss mom’s breakfast and the hurry you were always in to make sure you got to first period on time. You come back to a quiet dorm room and it seems so lonely. Nothing is going on; it’s just you. You sit at dinner alone because sure, you’ve met a couple friends, but you know you’re safe when you’re alone. You call your childhood best friends and tell them about how you miss them and how college is going “great”. But it’s not, and you know that. You’re just so tired of your pain consuming so much of your life that you can’t stand to talk about it anymore. The anxiety creeps up on you and your mom makes you schedule an appointment for counseling. You say it’s stupid, but deep down, you know that talking about it helps. You tell your new friends that you have an appointment, but don’t specify what kind because you don’t want them to think there’s anything wrong. You talk for an hour about your problems, and someone finally listens. They don’t tell you why you’re thinking incorrectly, they just listen. They let you vent. That’s something new; most people in the past haven’t done that for you.
And slowly with time, the phase ends. You look at who you want to be, and you start finding the steps to get there. Self care is important. Everyone has their own experiences in this monumental transition, but we can often find some common ground. What you have to remember is that it’s okay to not be okay. You’re not expected to completely uproot your life, move to a whole new place (a new country or continent for some) and not struggle at all. But what is true is that this is just a phase of the bigger journey. Something much more important comes out of the battles you’re facing. We’re all in the same boat, and we’re all fighting our own demons. But looking at the positive and moving forward brings about the most beautiful transition.