Transitioning in life can be very difficult, but one of the most challenging of times can be the transition into college. At least for me, entering my freshman year, I was so excited and ready for a new start. I was going into college with a large group of girls from high school, and I felt ready. Ready to meet new people, live away from home and truly be independent. I have always been an independent person, so I wasn’t worried about college in that regard. I assumed I was already ahead of the game. But within my first month I started to realize that not everything is going to be as perfect as I wanted it to be.
Within my first month or two at college, I gradually drifted apart from some people and I noticed I was feeling a bit alone. I was really in my head about the fact that I didn’t have this giant group of friends like you’d see in the movies. I felt like everyone was finding their place but me. That felt very isolating. On top of all of that, I missed my parents, my cats and my friends who were at other colleges.
For a long time, these worries really weighed over me and I felt like I was the only one who felt this way. But coming into my sophomore year, or even just the second semester of freshman year, I realized that I wasn’t alone. I’ve met a lot of people who felt very similar to me. That really opened my eyes. The most important thing that I’d want to tell my freshman self is that I wasn’t alone. Just because visually I was seeing all these people who seemed so put together didn’t mean that that was their truth. I have no idea what their struggles were, as they didn’t know mine. It’s a similar thing to social media in a way, of how we tend to compare ourselves to strangers just based on the single second we observe of their life.Â
Healing takes time, and I wish I had given myself a lot more grace and patience. Because sometimes when we try to rush ourselves, we’re actually preventing ourselves from reaching our potential. I often wouldn’t understand why I wasn’t immediately clicking with every single person I met, but that was ultimately because I was rushing my experience and not trying to find people I genuinely liked. I just wanted anyone I could get. But as I began to take time and find people here and there within different classes, I started to feel more relieved.Â
With that, I think for most things we go into expectation with, they never exactly go as planned. But it’s important not to fret over those things and do what you can. Nothing needs to be perfect. And for those who do have what they want, it doesn’t mean their life is perfect either. They could lack something that maybe you have. It’s just important, especially in this age, to be lenient and give yourself grace for this time of change.