Two years ago, my biggest concern was making it out of the school parking lot before the school buses. It was a universal rule that you had to literally run to your car within the first 5 minutes after school ended, or you could bet on sitting in the long line of cars for at least 10 minutes while our vice principal directed traffic. My little brother always took his time leaving his last class, and I would yell at him the entire ride home about how he needed to come to the car faster. He never listened.
Obviously, in hindsight, everything that I made a big deal about in high school would be the least of my worries now. To be honest, about 99.9% of the ‘problems’ I had then were not really even problems. But at the time, of course, they seemed to signal the end of the world. Now, I’d kill to be sitting in traffic behind the school buses.
One day, you have everything planned out for you—and then you don’t anymore. I realize I took for granted how easy things were for me in high school; I could miss a week of school and get caught up in 5 minutes, everything your teacher wrote on the study guide was actually on the test, your textbooks were free, and you could get by with seldom doing homework, as long as you participated in class and the teacher liked you. And then, out of nowhere, you’re thrust into adulthood without any preparation for anything. You don’t even have time to decide if you want to be an adult…you sort of just become one. Talk about a rude awakening.
I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t prepared for anything outside of high school. Two years ago seems like another lifetime. When I first got to college, I remember thinking that it wouldn’t be that much different than the last four years of my life. One thing I didn’t really comprehend, at the time, is that college isn’t just about school—it’s about the rest of your life.
I can manage the homework fairly well. As far as tests go, I’ve learned that I can study for an entire month and still get a ‘C’—it happens. What I didn’t know, however, was that I would have to do many adult things in the process.
I wasn’t prepared to pay rent because I don’t even know how to write a check. I have no idea how to grocery shop efficiently because my mom went to Costco every two weeks and my kitchen was always fully stocked. I filed my taxes for the first time last week, and I’m pretty sure I did it all wrong. Nothing could have seriously prepared me for the sleepless nights full of stress and anxiety of things completely unrelated to academics.
I probably think to myself “What in the f—k is going on?” at least 30 times per hour. I don’t ever have an answer to that question. Admittedly, I’ve kind of been winging the whole ‘adulting’ thing. For a while, I thought I was doing everything wrong. I’m a huge crybaby, (a fact that anyone who knows me is well aware of) so every time I found myself sobbing on the phone to my mother about how things were too hard, as dramatic as it sounds, I thought that it would be best to pack up and head home. I wasn’t cut out for any of this, I thought. I signed up for school—I did not sign up for life.
It wasn’t until very recently—like, last week—that I realized that this is okay. You tend to feel like you’re the only one going through this massive transition into a world with no rulebook, no guidance, and no clear point of where you’re supposed to be. I often find myself afraid that I won’t get a job after college and, compounded with the stress of a depressing bank account, I feel like an absolute failure more often than not. However, one thing I have to constantly remind myself of in the process of all of this is that it will be okay.
I’m 19 years old. I’m still afraid of the dark. Up until a few short years ago, I didn’t even know where I would end up after high school, let alone how the hell I would get there. I also didn’t expect to be relatively on my own during college. My mother is my biggest supporter, but being so far away from home, I learned early on that it wouldn’t be so easy to run to her when I had problems.
Part of the fear I have regarding not having my life completely together comes from the constant comparison of myself to everyone else my age. I find myself feeling like if I don’t have it by now like they do, I never will. I feel like I should be handing out business cards and 30-page resumes every chance I get. I am just about to finish my second year, and I have still never had an internship. Am I going to grad school? Who the hell knows. I haven’t even started saving for retirement. Plus, I need to lose 10 pounds by last week. There is just so much happening.
Because we’re doing so many adult things, we feel like everything has to be in order at every moment. Any minor slip up seems to halt everything we’ve been working up until that point, and you feel like you’re constantly starting over. It’s beyond frustrating.
It is important to remember that no one really expects you to have it all together just starting out. There will be times of failure and frustration, which is part of being young and figuring things out. It will all work out, and it will all be okay in the end. When you find yourself stressing about what tomorrow will bring, if you’re on the right track, or what the hell you’re doing with your life, just remember that everyone, at some point, has been there. And it will be okay.