Dear Me,

You have changed. Not necessarily for bad or for good. Just changed. You were different a few years ago, maybe not too different, but different. College has changed you. How may you ask? I will list a few ways…

1. You avoid drama.

You now HATE drama. In high school it was so fun. “Did you guys hear that Peter and Rachel kissed Saturday night? Like, yeah, Peter said it was so gross,” (and then you continue to tell your other five besties the same thing). OK, no. This does not happen anymore in college. If you have a problem with someone, you now address it to their face. You also could care less about who made out with who at Saturday night’s party.

2. You do not care as much about your appearance as you did in high school.

This is good. You have let your guard down more. You do not do your makeup to perfection anymore. Actually, yesterday you left your room without any eye makeup. I applaud you. In high school you had eyeliner down to a science and wore bronzer like you just left Florida. Thank you for toning it down!

3. You have accepted your body.

You have come to terms with the fact that some days you are going to be so busy that you cannot find that hour to go to the gym. In high school you always had sports going on you didn’t need to plan time to workout (or maybe you just had a fast metabolism). You now let yourself have that ice cream you’ve been craving. The few extra pounds are not going to kill you. You have accepted that as we age we may gain a few extra pounds. They tell a story and give us character…right?!

4. You are more yourself.

You have more of an opinion now and the confidence to live as you please. In high school you wanted to be well-liked. Now, you do not care if you are liked or not. You have accepted the fact that you will find people who don’t like you and disagree with you. This is good. It means you are being yourself, you are a human being.

5. You do not depend on your parents for money, and neither do you want to.

In high school, you never minded asking your parents for money for the movies or ice cream, you enjoyed it. Now, you never want to ask them for money. You enjoy earning your own money and buying your own things. You are thrilled to order yourself those shoes you wanted and not have to ask anyone to do it for you. You also have begun to understand the value of a dollar.

6. Your sibling(s) are now your best friends.

You may not see your siblings everyday, but they are always one of the first people you tell important things going on in your life to. You cannot wait to see them over break. This was not the case in high school. In high school, all you wanted was for them to "eff off." Now you can’t wait to call them to laugh about the hilarious texts your parents sent in the group message that they thought they were only sending to each other.

7. ...And your parents are cool

Your parents are the coolest people ever. Your dad is now your favorite skiing buddy and your mom actually has some really good dating advice. Also how the hell do they work that much and still smile? You can’t wait until they come visit you. In high school, family dinners were dreaded. Now you can't wait to go home and kick back with them.

8. You WANT to learn.

In high school you questioned your math teacher maybe every other class on “why the heck are we even learning this stuff?” Now you try your best to pay attention in class. You are interested in things you learn about and you want to invest in your learning. You realize the importance of paying attention in class. You want to come to your group study session with knowledge and feel empowered when you can discuss what's going on in your class with peers.

9. You are becoming a part of your community.

You pick trash up when you see it and recycle when you can. You are more interested in what's going on around you--politics, news, etc. In high school, you did not feel as much need to be apart of this. You felt fine not knowing anything about the presidential candidates and only cared about events that directly related to you. You now want to attend more community events than just the high school basketball games.

10. And finally…you WANT to ride the bus

So let's be real, riding the bus in high school was pretty nerdy. Now you hope to god that there's going to be a bus coming soon. You are TOO exhausted to walk the mile to class and you definitely do not want to use gas when you could just take a bus. Oh and you may or may not have celebrated in your head when you found out you could ride the city bus for free.