It’s my first spring away from home. About this time last year, I began making decisions about where’d I go to college. I never thought I’d choose Berkeley, but here I am.
A crucial part of moving away was breaking out of old routines, losing what used to make me happy, and finding new things to fill the void. I spent plenty of time being afraid that I’d make the wrong choice, that I would spend the next four years stuck in a place I didn’t want to be. I was completely content with going to a local college. Suddenly moving across the state to a massive university seven hours away from home was jarring and unexpected because it was too close and too far away all at once.
I do a lot of things now that my friends back home have never seen me do. They watched me grow up, but haven’t been to my new favorite restaurants, haven’t laughed as I wander off to take pictures of flowers with my camera I barely know how to use, or watched me skate and nearly fall down frat row. On a hot day, even though I can’t go to a Southern California beach, I sit and eat on the glade with my roommate who I didn’t know a couple of months ago. I can move on from the person I used to be, and there is something beautiful about that.
