Picture this: you’re heading off to college. You’re bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and basking in the awe of a hopeful future… or maybe you’re like me: chilled to the bone at the idea of change. People like us tend to cling to what is familiar. Sometimes, it’s a person that we cling to.
I came into my time at Ohio University with a partner that I had been with since I was 16. I read blog after blog about how it’s best to end high school relationships before stepping foot onto campus. I brushed it off as internet personalities being smug and presumptuous. In my eyes, my partner and I were in this together: it the greatest adventure we had ever embarked on. In a way that was true, but this relationship advice stuck like glue in the back of my mind.
I never would have guessed how right those articles were until I was entering my junior year, and leaving my high school sweetheart behind. While the heartbreak was intense, I saw a whole new world spring to life in front of me. My only wish was that I saw this world earlier, in the lines of the blogs that I cast aside.
Trust me, I know first-hand that this advice is blunt and unpleasant; but maybe you should break up with your high school sweetheart too.
New chapters are scary, but you will get through it.
A new home and a new school can mean a whole new you… right? That’s what I thought. I craved a new version of myself, but it took starting over to realize that new beginnings are daunting.
I was fresh on campus, wandering welcome weekend events and involvement fairs, bumping shoulders with other eager first-year students. We were all new here and itching to shape our story.
But I felt out of place.
While others were writing their fresh new chapter with vigor and enthusiasm, I wanted to retreat back to the story I had already written.
Classes began, and I hadn’t figured out who I was or who I wanted to be. When I met new friends, my go-to talking point was my partner because my relationship was the only thing I knew about myself. My friends would identify me by my partner before anything else because that was exactly what I had done. It broke my heart.
Because I didn’t know myself, I had to watch the world tie me to someone else.
It is easy to cling to a high school partner because they represent the life you had before: a life that was figured out, for better or for worse. Sometimes this can hold you back from starting anew. If you are desperate for a new story, with you as the protagonist, you may have to leave out the side characters from your old life.
Find a new voice and a new dream.
No one thinks that college will change them that much, but change is as inevitable as it is surprising. You will begin to find yourself. Just know that this is a new self that you and your partner may not recognize: and that is perfectly okay.
I was a small-town girl with brand-new eyes, sitting in lecture halls with hundreds of seats, each one filled with classmates from around the world. My peers would raise their hands and share their distinctive point-of-view. I was introduced to new and intriguing ways of life that were foreign to me but surprisingly ended up within my reach. Their voices were humbling. Each voice helped me find my own.
This new voice was unlike the one I knew before, the one that belonged to a girl infatuated with her homecoming date. I came to realize my dreams of young marriage and a big house didn’t really compliment me in the way that it complimented the kids I grew up with. I had new dreams: I wanted to travel the world, get my master’s degree, and have an adventurous career. While I was blinded by the promise that my new dreams offered, I still had to look in the eyes of my partner, and see my former dreams reflecting back onto me.
You can’t deny your dreams, and dreams change. Maintaining a relationship with a high school sweetheart means that you may be held to dreams you had when you were a teenager, and you can’t force yourself to aspire to something that doesn’t interest you anymore. You owe each other the space to find a new voice and a new dream.
Find your own purpose: it isn’t selfish.
Students tend to get lost in the shuffle of college life– it’s inevitable. Under piles of textbooks and midterm essays, we forget what we are there for, and we are too afraid to figure it out.
I was lost.
It was my first time away from the safety net of home, and I missed my family. I doubted my intelligence. I wanted friends, but I couldn’t make them for the life of me. Parents, professors, and advisors asked what my goals were, but I never really knew what to say. How was I supposed to know? I was too busy helping my partner find their value, that I didn’t take the time to worry about my own.
My mental health was damaged by the lack of purpose and I brushed it aside because I didn’t want to be selfish. This is where I was wrong.
Finding a purpose and a sense of individuality is not selfish, it is necessary. The years spent at college are too formative to focus on anything but yourself. You would be surprised by the validation that you find when you are alone.
Do what is best for you.
In an ironic turn of events, I am now one of the smug relationship bloggers I used to resent. But, I felt that my story was worth sharing. Maybe my words will inspire positive change in someone else’s life.
My story is uniquely my own. These experiences will most likely be different than yours, and that is okay. Take it with a grain of salt and consider what is best for you. The decision is all yours. After everything, if you think it is necessary, maybe you should break up with your high school sweetheart too.