As we come to the end of another semester, I’m looking back on what went on around me, what happened to me, and how it affected me. Here’s what I learned about myself, and about life Junior Year at La Salle.
1. Alone time is much needed.
I am my most true self when I am alone. Junior year was my first year living without sharing a room. Having my own space, I was relieved to not have to have a “face” on all the time. Being able to be alone with my own thoughts, do to things that I like to do without concern for anyone else allowed me to be for comfortable in my own skin when I was in a social setting.
2. I don’t need to be liked by everyone.
OF COURSE, I care about what people think of me. Everyone does to some extent. And of course, I want people to like me, I want to have friends, and I am confident in the friendships and the romantic relationship that I have built leading up to this point. Reality is, there are going to be people that don’t love you, people that don’t understand your point of view…and that’s just fine. You can’t be everyone’s favorite, you can’t be everyone’s best friend, and you’re not going to click with everyone. If it’s not meant to be, then it’s not meant to be, and we can’t force relationships to happen if they aren’t there.
3. It gets bad, and it will get better.
Academics included, Junior year was a hard year. My first semester classes were TOUGH. Maintaining relationships with my professors was especially difficult, and as with most students, I am also a human, and I have a life. And this year, life hit like a truck. At the very end of the first semester, my team suffered through the loss of a teammate. A few days later, my grandmother passed away after battling lung cancer for a year. Right before I returned to school for Spring Semester, my family found out that my mother had breast cancer.
It continued to get harder and harder to deal with everything, and it seemed like I never had time to breathe between the bigger things, the smaller things, and everything in between. It takes time, it takes patience, and for me, it took my own optimism and meditation to be able to process everything fully, while maintaining grades and other relationships. For me, coming to terms with both losses meant tears and thoughts and focusing on every good thing I’ve ever thought about those people, how I am changed because of them, and how I can take what they’ve taught me to teach others.
4. Hard work pays off.
This year, I got my resume together, practiced writing cover letters for different kinds of jobs, visited the career center on campus, and started hunting for internships and other job opportunities. I also helped bring Her Campus to La Salle and have managed it with a partner in crime over the year while juggling my sport. It wasn’t always fun, but I can say that it was worth it.
5. Patience is a virtue.
Be patient with yourself, with others around you, and with life. Things don’t always happen the way you want it to the first time, or the second time, or even the third time. People won’t deliver as quickly as you want, and life won’t always move at your pace. Slow down, take steps, and breathe.
I’ve got one more year to go, and I can’t wait to see what it has to offer.