ATTENTION ALL FRESHMAN: It gets better!! Becoming a freshman in college was probably one of the biggest transitions I’ve ever experienced in my life (so far). I unpacked my once “cookie cutter” life one year ago into a cement walled bedroom (scary right?) to live with a girl that could’ve been catfishing me during our summer Facebook friendship, for what would become some of the most emotional nine months of my life.
I was beyond excited to go to college-as many teenagers are. No curfew, no bedtime, parties, late classes, etc. Sounded like heaven to me! (I was wrong). I showed up to college knowing very few people and forgot how hard it would be to start from scratch and create a friend group like the one I had back home. I had a boyfriend at the time, which caused my mind to often times be somewhere other than Saint Joe’s. I was stuck between becoming friends with my new roommate, keeping a boyfriend, balancing friendships back home, and making genuine friendships in this new environment. I honestly didn’t know where to turn! I became very overwhelmed and often times found myself not wanting to be here anymore. I knew deep down that things would change and get better but it was so hard to remind myself that day in and day out.
The hardest thing for me while away at college was social media. I kept comparing my journey at Saint Joe’s to my high school friend’s journeys via Instagram and Twitter. I felt like every one of my friends had huge groups of friends in each of their photos and were having the times of their lives while I was sitting on my phone behind the doors of my dorm room. I was eagerly trying to make friends with every person I came into contact with. I needed a huge group of friends like the kids back home. I needed to show them I was having a blast. I remember forcing A LOT of friendships and being very disappointed when they didn’t work out. Luckily, my roommate and I became insanely close which helped me during my “stressful” time. I tried and tried but I couldn’t seem to find a group of cool girls that would just let me be myself. That’s when I decided to take a break. I started realizing that social media is fake and that nobody posts about the bad times they’re having. The adjustment is hard for a lot of kids and that’s something Twitter and Facebook tend to hide. The kids back home were snapchatting every step they took and I was jumping over fences to keep up with them. Enough was enough. That’s when I finally started focusing more on myself instead of what everybody else was doing. I kept my attention in a positive direction and stopped trying so hard to “keep up”. That’s when I found what I was looking for. Randomly, without realizing it, I had run into a group of girls in the lunch room that would become the girls I would make some of my favorite college memories (so far) with. When I stopped looking for something, it found me and I could not be more grateful. I was glad that I stopped focusing so much on social media and how my journey wasn’t going at the same pace as everybody else’s. This is college. It’s such a new environment and takes a lot of time to become adjusted. I’m now a sophomore and still sometimes find myself focusing on things other than myself. I constantly remind myself how much happier I am when I stay positive and keep moving forward and it has helped me immensely. You need to remember that as much as we want to control everything that happens in this world, we can’t. We need to let whatever is supposed to happen, happen on its own. I want to remind everybody that your journey is your own. You cannot get frustrated when life isn’t where you want it to be. God knows where you should be and who should be with you. We just need to enjoy the ride! “It all works out eventually, just breathe through existing moments and whatever happens after is what should’ve been. Trust the universe.”
HCxo,
Hanna