It didn’t happen overnight, it didn’t even happen in the first few months, but it happened. It was as drastic as a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, it was as obvious as that too. And I didn’t even notice until I was defending myself saying it hadn’t happened.
I changed. I have changed since high school.
In high school, I was popular, I dated the hottest guys, I cared about how I looked way too much, I skipped class to go to the coffee shop with my friends, and I spent hours searching for the perfect prom dress. I danced for the dance team and was on student government, I went to every choir performance and was never more than a classroom away from my main group of friends.
Then, we graduated. We stayed together all summer, vowing wholeheartedly to one another that our children would call the other “Aunt” and we’d never let the fact that I was going to college and they weren’t come between us. Ever.
And that worked. My best friends helped me move into my dorm, rolling their eyes at the girls on my floor and with relief in their eyes, assured me that I wouldn’t make new best friends because the new girls were obviously not as fun.
We talked everyday, as if the hour distance between us was nothing, they were busy living at home and working, hanging out with each other every day, and I was away, learning things about myself that I never knew. The texts and calls and hangout sessions became replaced with texting the cute boys in my American History classes, calling my roommates, and hanging out with my new sorority sisters.
But it was more than just new people, it was new ideas. I had never heard anyone explain the core beliefs of feminism to me because in high school, it had never even seemed to be a real world problem. I had never listened so intently to someone explain the issues with organized religion and had never cared so much about becoming informed about any issue.
It didn’t end there, with so much information and new ways of thinking, I began needing friends and women in my life at the same stage I was at. College is different than working full time, it’s easier and it’s harder but it’s different. I clung to my new friends and my sisters because they understood staying up until 4am to write a paper about a subject that a month ago, I didn’t even know existed. They would Google “how to make the perfect toga” in the aisle of Wal-Mart with me and they held my hair back the first time I got too drunk to know my own name. I loved my best friends still, but they suddenly weren’t the ones that fit perfectly into my life.
And I didn’t fit perfectly into theirs. I couldn’t relate to wanting to get married, I couldn’t relate to parents treating them like they were still in high school, and I didn’t care about the drama amongst our old high school acquaintances. I was no longer the most popular girl in school because how would that happen in a school of 30,000? I was not only concerned about whether or not the guy I was dating was the hottest guy around and not doing my makeup before class became a weekly habit. Skipping class gave me anxiety and I spent hours in the library instead of the mall.
It happens to everyone, going to college grooms you, it changes you, and it is the catalyst of a metamorphosis that you can’t control. It’s the beautiful part of college, the part that isn’t on a test and the part that you can’t study for. It’s somewhere in between freshman orientation and walking to get your diploma.
I changed since high school, thankfully, because I grew up. I might not be a grown up, but I like who she is turning out to be.