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This Sunday marks one month since moving into college, and let me just say that starting college is weird. You have to buy your own food and remember to eat dinner but you’re still on your parents insurance. There is no one to remind you about assignments and no one to stop you from going out until all hours of the morning. Your sister isn’t there when you climb in bed in your childhood bedroom that you’ve shared for years, laughing at some joke from the night. You can eat cheeseburgers for lunch three days in a row but if your roommates are in class, you might have to sit alone.
For years, I couldn’t wait for college. To have so many new people around, to be in the heart of hustle and bustle in the city, to have total freedom. But no one told me that maybe not all of the new people would like me, or that sometimes my heart would crave the bucolic of home, and that maybe I would miss having some sort of structure and direction.
When I was moving into my dorm, my mom was helping me unpack all of my things. “Where do you want your books to go?” She asked me and I shrugged. “Well, this is your room after all.” I abruptly stopped hanging up the smiling pictures of friends back home. This was my room, after all. Suddenly my mother’s opinion on where to keep books and how to store t-shirts didn’t matter because this was my room. I stacked the books on my desk. It was in this moment that it finally sunk in that I was on my own, ready to tackle this new chapter of my life independently.
It’s been a few weeks since I said goodbye to my family and to be honest, it wasn’t a constant stream of uphill as movies like Pitch Perfect would tell you. There were moments where I was filled with homesickness or times I walked into the dining hall and expected to see my friends from home but rather was met with the faces of people I didn’t know. However, it hasn’t been all downhill either. I have lost track of the amount of times my roommate and I have stayed up late, laughing until our stomach hurts. Or the feeling of triumph after acing my first English exam. Now when I walk into the dining hall, I’m met with smiles of new friends and my name being called out.
In just one short month, college has morphed into an exciting and far-off thought in my mind to a place I feel comfortable calling my home. And frankly, I can’t wait to see where the next four years take me.