Dear Freshman Year of College,

I had heard people whispering about where I’d be when I found you since my head barely competed with my parent’s knees. It seemed as though you were all the rage in too many senses of the phrase for my young mind to ignore, so I pinned you to my horizon and set off walking as quickly as my legs would carry me.

I waited for you with bated breath in the grades of tests, the outstretched arms of extracurriculars, the tedium of applications, shifting from shoulder to shoulder the knowledge that I knew nothing about what I would be, what you would be, whether or not we would get along. At times, as I grew closer, you inched away. At times, when I turned to glance at a thing of the past, suddenly you were several steps closer. Each time I hit another milestone, caught another glimpse of your face, you looked…different. I couldn’t keep up.

I couldn’t prepare myself by expecting the unexpected. You were the expected and the unexpected all at once. The culmination of years of cliches I had heard and an entirely obscure landscape of the unknown. I didn’t know which college would house the two of us or whether or not I would like what you had waiting for me. I could only fall in line with the other swarms of high school seniors itching at their chance to prove themselves and swallowing uncertainty and doubts whole, pretending those particular emotions don’t exist. I was terrified, couldn’t show it, wanted to put on the boldest face I was able and show the world that I could do this. Could I really do this?

And then we met.

You smiled at me on move-in day through the eyes of eager freshman just as nervous as I but twice as friendly. You coaxed my voice from my throat, spun small talk into conversations that waltzed on for hours, showed me that this place was an opportunity, not a terror.

You demonstrated to me that hey, I will make mistakes.

But it was and is time to stop letting the fear of failure keep me from ever trying. It is time to seize my moments, time to take advantage of what God has put in front of me, time to stop counting myself out before I’ve even had the chance to try. Better to make a fool out of myself in front of others than play the fool who never took a step forward. Better to love and trust others than insist I can make it on my own until the ground drops out from beneath my feet. Better to take what happens in stride, pray, and keep moving than heap my world onto idealistic things and watch it crumble.

As I say my final goodbyes to you and turn my focus towards escaping finals unscathed, I cannot help but be excited for the future ahead. Though I know no year will look as you do, will share the same people, the same experiences, the same way of living as you do now, I know that what I have learned from you, I can carry with me for a lifetime.

You were not a time of survival. You were a time of life. Thank you.

Sincerely,

A Future Sophomore in College