I miss Coastal Carolina University.

Most of my friends are going to read this and give me the whole, “give it a rest bro we get it” spiel. And I understand that. But CCU JUST WON THE COLLEGE WORLD SERIES FOR THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP! First off, huge shout out to those guys, what an incredible, gritty run into the CWS. Every single game up until the last pitch in the final game was insane. So naturally, I am more in my feelings about leaving Coastal than ever. I want to be there to celebrate and soak the moment in. I wish I could be there so incredibly bad.

I've been wrestling with this for the past half a year or so, but over the course of the last month it's been piercing my mind and is increasingly more of a potent thought. I feel like if I can get it off my chest one last time, I can have closure. This one's for me.

I stand by my decision to leave CCU. In the long run, actually in the short run too, transferring was the best for me. The upcoming fall semester is on the horizon and I'm ecstatic to be continuing my academics at Suffolk University in the heart of Boston. Over the last six months, I've grown tremendously and have discovered who I am supposed to be and what path I am to take. It sounds cliche, but sometimes you have to give up the best thing in your life for even better doors to open. And that's what's happened for me. It doesn't make it easy, however.

Leaving high school I took a long shot chance, and winged it by going to Coastal Carolina, essentially on the principality that I had never been granted the luxury of traveling anywhere before. I told myself, "I'm taking this opportunity now or I'll forever regret it."

And God, it was the funniest year and a half of my life. Honestly, it was probably the best year and a half of my life. I cannot even begin to describe half of my experiences or the memories I made. That time frame taught me so much about myself, and about life. I wouldn't trade it or take it back for anything at all.

But it's different now. A whole semester has passed by since I departed.

I miss it terribly. At first, it wasn't bad, I was back home with my old friends, making more money in just a couple weeks than I had in my bank account for an entire semester, and I was really looking ahead to the next school year. But it started to hurt, waking up at 6AM every morning to go to work, not going out on Fridays because of a Saturday shift, only to see my friends’ crazy nights all on Snapchat the next morning. To talk to them about how great the spring semester was going, while I was home, to not be involved in conversations about getting a house for the summer, and frankly just feeling alone and isolated, I became jealous. I longed to be back with my friends, partying and living life. I wanted to stay up all night doing stupid pointless stuff, wake up on the weekdays to my roommates humming various objects at my bedroom door, or go to Cookout at 2AM on a Monday for no reason other than to spend the last $10 to my name. I wanted to skip class and go to Myrtle Beach, and to wake up on Sunday, literally crawl into the living room to ask the nearest person what had happened that weekend.

I wanted to be a kid again.

I left. And that's it. That chapter closed on my life. I have to be an adult now. I'm no longer a normal college student that lives with my boys, parties my ass off all the time, and has as much fun as possible. I cut that setting short, after just a year and a half... I'm supposed to have four years of endless idiotic memories and recklessness. Four years of being a kid before the real world intercedes. That's what sucks the most; the fact that I don't feel like a kid anymore. The fact that I can't do any of that to the same extent anymore because I chose this route. The fact that a chapter in my life holding so much fun and excitement is truly closed. The saying goes "it's not college it's Coastal." Well, that is the most accurate phrase ever. CCU is paradise, top to bottom, anyway you look at it. Coastal Carolina is everything I could ask for.

I won't, but sometimes I'm on the verge of regretting my decision. I know life has new adventures pending for me, and that this whole transferring thing is actually the most reckless move I've pulled off yet, far surpassing anything I've done at Coastal (well maybe not). But it sucks sometimes ya know? I miss it so much man. I miss it all, every part of it. Tailgating and late night bonfires. Monarch pool parties. 64th street beach days with the entire school. Broadway. The long walks across Prince lawn in the fresh morning dew. I even miss the damn shuttles and Hick’s dining hall. I could go on and on endlessly listing everything I love about that place and be nostalgic all day. Every memory of my time at Coastal is a great one. Not one bad. And I miss it.

I miss my friends, my Coastal family. I miss having fun and just being me, without this realm of responsibility and stress that I caged myself into now. I miss that spontaneity. I miss that freedom.

I miss being a Chanticleer.