The cursor line keeps blinking on the blank page, mocking me. This is a new feeling for me, I'm not usually like this. In high school, I was one of those kids who could write essay after essay, who was always on top of their game, who would never let this happen to them.

But if I was one of those kids in high school, what does that make me now? The transition to college is hard for everybody, in various ways. The hardest part for sure is allowing myself to progress, to grow and to learn. But, that is easier said than done.

Ever since my move into college, I've felt varying degrees of stress coupled with an overarching feeling of inadequacy.

It never occurred to me that freedom could be so debilitating while coming to the realization that rigidity was also a form of liberation. In high school, there was a set schedule; we had to do this and be here at this time. But in college, nothing is ever really set in stone. Of course, you should go to class, and I haven't (nor do I dare) missed one yet. But, no one's going to hunt you down and make you go if you don't. There are chunks of free time that have taken me a month to figure out how to fill. Should I go to the library? When should I get food? Would it be so bad if I just laid down instead?

These thoughts often fill my mind whenever I have a window of free time. But of course, "free time" is never free time. Because in the hour that I spent eating, I could've done my reading for class. Or that nap I took could've been spent on homework. In high school, I had time for all of these things without that guilt. I look back on my high school self and see someone efficient, someone who would be disappointed in college me.

But, I also see someone who had different circumstances, a different schedule. I look back and see a girl who worked with what she had and worked through what she got handed to her.

It's easy to forget that I am still that girl.

College may be a different story, but it's played by the same character. And this is something that I forget. Maybe you do too, maybe you're that kid in my English class who thought they could do this college thing but are rethinking it. You might think to yourself that you're not good enough, maybe you shouldn't be here. But I want to tell you two things, the first one being that you are not alone. I feel that way too, and I'm willing to bet that a lot of your peers do. We tend to forget that college is new for everybody and no one's really got it all figured out yet. The other thing you must remember is that you belong here, you worked for it. Never think to yourself that because you didn't do that reading or because you handed in a paper late is cause for you to feel inadequate. You are doing enough, more than enough.