It took me until almost a year ago to realize that I am bad at adjusting to a new environment.
And honestly, I am still learning.
Let me clarify before I delve in. By my definition, change is necessary such as starting a new semester or moving into a new dorm. It is the actual process. Adjusting is the aftermath, the necessary things that you have to do to make yourself comfortable with this new change.
Change is one of those human functions that no one ever wants to admit they are bad at, at least I do not.
It is almost comical how we all seem shocked when a change happens and then realize, “Oh, now I get why I was in a terrible mood.”
It’s cyclical, it’s inevitable.
With this routine part of life, it is the human job to adapt to whatever we have been given. This plays out by being where we need to be when we need to be there, making sure that we have what we need to get through our day, and having an overall sense of how we feel about going through with something.
It can be as simple as what your first meal is in your new apartment, to what your morning preparation is at the start of your day to begin a new semester.
There is a stigma about change as well. If you cannot thrive in what you have been put in, it is almost like natural selection, picking out the so-called “weak.”
I am here to de-bunk this assumption by admitting that I am so very bad at adjusting.
Like I said earlier, it was not until a little while ago that I realized I was bad at adjusting, let alone admitting that change was a routine part of life that I struggled with.
I am fortunate, I learned this early on in my life.
I try to recognize what I am feeling because of my new environment and not blame it, but give some grace to myself and the time period that I am in.
My motto, especially since coming back to campus this semester, has been, “It is okay to give things grace.”
Going with grace is the willingness to let things fall where they may and approach them with a softness that is not being afforded at the moment.
It is like one of those practices where you put out into the world what you would like to return to you.
It has helped me a lot.
A difficult class? Let me give myself grace to make this as easy as it can be. New club meetings? How can I approach this that would make someone else feel what I would like to be feeling right now? Missing home? Let me have the grace with myself to be melancholy, but kindly remind me why I am here, what a wonderful community I am a part of, and how moments are fleeting so I should live in them.
With all of this said, the possibilities to apply grace are endless.
They are endless opportunities just like change and adjusting.
And though change and adjusting are parts of life that will be constant, the struggle that we feel alone in our feelings or like we will never move on can all be countered by some self-assuring grace.
At least I have found this so.