In every cliché article you read about college, you often read about the invaluable lessons you've learned and the amazing friendships that have formed over such a short timespan. I can finally say, after one semester of college, that these clichés are freakishly accurate.
Coming into college, I had some ideas of what I wanted out of my college experience but like most freshmen, I was more excited for an opportunity to start over with new people rather than to focus on adjusting. It took me one month to realize just how lost I had become and I no longer felt mature enough to live ten hours away from home. I was so caught up in the grind of being a student-athlete trying to convince myself it's okay to have a social life, that I lost sight of many morals I had before college. One second, everything seemed to be going great -- I was having the best workouts of my life, I was getting used to new teammates, I was spending time with amazing people -- and then the next second, everything fell apart.
It felt like the whole world came crashing down all at once and I had no idea what hit me. My workouts started to struggle, I enjoyed sitting alone in my room alone for hours on end, and I was suddenly 8 pounds heavier just like that. After a few weeks of trying to dig myself out of the hole I dug, I realized that I couldn't do it on my own. I made my first call home, admitting I was upset and I didn't know what to do. The next day, I got a text from my mom, asking if I wanted any company at the doctor's appointment I had scheduled. Just like that, my parents were there rushing to my side like there wasn't a ten hour travel period separating us.
The few days my mom was here, we got to just hang out at her hotel, allowing me to focus on myself for the first time in what felt like forever. But when that time together came to a close, I was left to keep working things out alone and it was scary. I began to talk to someone about everything I was feeling and got the standard, "this is completely normal, almost all freshmen deal with this." Though frustrating, he was 100% right and it brought me back to the real world, forcing me to realize that I wasn't in this alone. I had my best friend, Paige, who I started to isolate myself from when sh*t hit the fan, as well as all my other suite-mates and friends from home.
I turned to many people but who I found myself relying on the most was Paige. Together, we took time to reflect on the good and the bad, sometimes alone and sometimes together and though things really sucked sometimes, it was easier with someone else. I won't pretend that things did a 180 upon realizing my life was a mess because trust me, I still had my highs and lows, but it made life simpler. Bad day? Vent to Paige. Good day? Brag to Paige. Paige had a bad day? Join her in roasting whoever made her upset.
Those lessons that were so popularly talked about before I came to college were right, but not in the way I expected. You learn who your best friends are not only through the fun times, but mostly through the rough ones. You learn that your professors don't just teach you material on the syllabus, but transferable life skills as well. Thankfully I was able to find solace in the many friendships I had with others, both near and far, and navigate through and embrace the sh*tshow that is freshman year.Through all of this, who I was became clearer than it ever had before: I wasn't sure, but that was okay. I learned that it is okay to not know what you want. It's okay to admit you're afraid of what's next. It's okay to call home crying, admitting that you, Little Miss Independent, are not so independent after all. Most importantly, I learned that it's important that you don't allow your past mistakes to define who you are.
Taking a look around my empty Danieley flat, I realized no matter how low the lows or how the high the highs, there's no place I would rather be.
