Imagine living with 8,000 other people your age, no parents, the freedom to live as you wish, act as you wish and be who you wish, for four years. You would think it would be the best four years of your life, right? Yeah, same.
Day 2 of the best four years of my life, I catch a cold and have to sleep in my parent’s hotel room during Welcome Weekend while the rest of my dorm is awkwardly mingling, racing to find their best friends and adding people’s phone numbers into their contacts faster than anyone could say a name. Minor setback, but it happens.
Tomorrow will put me back on track to the best four years of my life.
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Day 20 of the best four years of my life, I have my first exam in my “Evolution and Society” science course. I am intrigued to see what this college-level test will be like and am confident in my ability to prepare. As I did all throughout high school, I make my flashcards, isolate myself, read over all my notes and slave my brain away. Yes, a complex course, but I am satisfied with my preparation, as such habits led me to me good grades all throughout high school.
I leave the test feeling the complete opposite regarding my capabilities. Grades are posted. I walk to the office to see mine: sixty. two. percent. Is that even possible?!?! I call my brother, cry, call my parents, cry some more, watch a movie, cry more and eventually my nightmare of a day is over.
Bigger setback in the best four years of my life. But, tomorrow is a new day. Everything will bounce right back as it should. Right?
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Day 32 of the best four years of my life. I decide I want to get back into swimming. I show up to “The Rock”, my one-piece suit fitting a little tighter than I remember. It’s not like I haven’t been swimming 16.5 hours a week for the past 4 months, as I had done for 12 years of my existence. No no, my thoughts tell me I am still that person, as speedy as ever. I have to be, it’s college and college is the best four years of my life; and it can’t be the best four years of my life without excelling in the one thing I have always prided myself off of.
The water hugging my body as I immerse in the pool is a familiar sensation. Definitely a little more short of breath, just because I’m a littttle out of shape. People start to pass me. I’m in the middle of the slow lane–not okay. I’m not average, this is my sport. This is my pride. I can’t base it off of something average.
“Let’s race a 100 free” the captain yells. Okay here is my time to give it my all, I’m probably just a few seconds off of how I used to be. “Take your marks, GO!” I’m off, my body aches, it cramps, it struggles, but it’s going fast, I just know it. I turn, kick, pull, push, and finally, touch the wall. 1:07. 1:07! 1:07!!! I would do that as a warmup in high school! I leave, feeling defeated by my own habits. What have I done to myself? Why have I turned into a slower, less intelligent, less capable person?!
I thought college was going to be the best four years of my life!
It is, it has to be. Just hide your emotions again. Put a bandaid over your feelings, and no one will know that you’re struggling. No one else is struggling, they won’t get it. They’re having the best four years of their lives, and you are too. Right?
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It’s a Friday night. I’m feeling a tad homesick and am craving a low-key, relaxing movie night as I had done every weekend with my best friends at home. I don’t really have any close friends yet to just go and knock on their door to hang out, and I’m not super close with my random roommate. I look on Instagram, and of course every other person I know is having a blast. Snapchat, same thing.
High heart rate, urge to cry. I wanna be home.
No, I don’t, I’m not allowed to feel this way. I am at an amazing school with an amazing family and have all the resources I could ever imagine. I don’t have the right to be sad. I am lucky to be where I am.
Best four years of my life, no time to be any other emotion but happy. Right?
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Fall break (finally… just kidding! so sad to leave!) Family dinner of course.
What are you involved with? What do you want to do with your life? What’s your passion? How are your friends? Do you like your dorm? What’s your major? How are the parties? Don’t you just love college?
Yeah! Best four years of my life!
But remember, just have fun, but not too much fun, find a job, but these are also the last years to screw up and have fun, get involved with as much as you can, but it’s okay to not know what you want to do, find yourself, just be yourself, find your place, your people, your—
Mom. Dad. I don’t know who I am anymore. These do not feel like the best years of my life. I need help.
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“Hey! Can I sit here?”
Finally, someone to sit with in Philosophy. We’ve met before, through mutual friends. She’s very nice and cool and easy to talk to, definitely someone I am happy to get to know more.
We grab lunch, I briefly mention that this year has been a little bit of a rocky road.
“Omg same, I was so homesick and lost, (still am a little bit) but it’s getting better”
Wait, someone else feels this way?
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“My friend in Duncan has a formal and can invite a few dates if you want to come!”
Yeah, that sounds fun!
Wow, there are people here I see myself being good friends with.
Maybe the best four years of my life is just having a delayed start?
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My “Adolescence” seminar is super interesting. My professor said I had a very good idea for a research project regarding social media’s negative influence on adolescents. I want to explain a little bit of my experience with social media’s negative effects. She agrees and tells me that everyone feels this way.
I’m intrigued and say I’m surprised more people don’t talk about it. She mentions that maybe this is something I would be interested in studying further.
Maybe there is a path for me.
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Dinner at South Dining Hall: 6:30. I laugh harder than I have in a while. Finally, these amazing, lifelong college friends that everyone raves about are beginning to form.
It’s getting better. It’s getting better.
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Another weekend of nights out, long talks, fun dinners, laughs and memories made.
I feel it for a moment, that feeling of the best time of my life.
And then comes…
A Tuesday night in the middle of winter at 11:48pm with a calculus test in 9 hours, an Evolution and Society test Thursday and writing assignment for English due in class tomorrow, SIBC slides to finish, a summer abroad essay to write, I’m cold, I haven’t seen the sun in what feels like a century, I’m tired, homesick, missing my friends from home who I’ve known my whole life, my parents to comfort me on days like these, and really missing the days when
I thought college was going to be the best four years of my life.
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Friday, finally. Dinner with all the girls. We have an amazing night, ending with Taco Bell in LaFun of course.
Somehow the usual deep talk conversation starters arise, and then it all starts coming out like a shaken-up soda finally getting the chance to pop:
“I applied to transfer last semester”
“It was such a hard transition I called my mom every day”
“Thank God I live in Chicago I drove home every chance I could”
“Yeah my roommate and I aren’t super close it’s a little awkward”
“My friends from high school seem like they’re having the greatest time ever on social media, I thought I was the odd one out”
Me. too. But I guess I’m not…
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It took me long enough to realize, but I’m not the only one who struggles. Everyone struggles. College is a bombardment of endless adjustments: moving across the country, being away from my family and close friends, having to start over with new friends, adjusting to college-level academics, trying to find your career path, trying to find yourself, failing, trying again.
We’re only human, emotions and struggles are natural, they are a part of life.
And so is college. Just another four years of our lives that may be the best, or worst, but is ultimately an unpredictable mosh pit of highs and lows and everything in between. I’ve learned to just let college be college. I’m not expecting anything, but just allowing it to shape itself into the most chaotic, amazing, stressful, fun and transformational bundle of precious moments.