Congratulations, Juliana! You successfully survived your first semester of college. Besides taking rigorous courses and studying countless hours of Spanish, history, and statistics, I also discovered so many different things about myself. When looking back over the past few months, I really can say for myself that my first semester of college allowed me to grow and change into a more responsible adult. I can honestly say that I am not the carefree high school senior with the huge group of friends I once was a year ago. College truly is about finding yourself, your "people," and who you really are and are meant to be. However, through finding myself and what really matters, I unfortunately discovered I had to let go of the old me in order to be who I am today. One thing, which was painful to process at first, was finding who my real friends truly are once out of high school and what makes a relationship with a boyfriend/girlfriend, loved one, or friend true and important. Losing certain people was heartbreaking, but finding myself and my happiness is more important.

Choosing to attend a college where I knew no one, I expected going in that I would lose touch or drift away from some of my high school best friends. But being apart from my group of people who I thought were my true friends, basically family, made me hold onto their friendship more closely while away. It was not until I saw all of them and we were all together again during our breaks that I realized how different I am from them. Even in high school, I always felt like the odd one out, but I still knew I belonged due to our similar interests we had in high school. Then, after time apart and all reuniting, I realized how much of an outsider I truly was and always will be.

Friendships go both ways. Seeing a friendship deteriorate after feeling cast out is not easy, but, in the end, it might be just what I need. After going through a really rough situation with my boyfriend, I truly realized who was truly there for me. I was hurt most by the friends who I considered very close to me. If they were in the situation I was in, I know that I would have tried reaching out and asking just a simple, "Hey, are you okay?" just to show that I was there for them as a friend and for support. Now, many of my friends who I still consider very close to me did reach out for support. But there were other friends who really hurt me more by how they treated me after this situation and I truly learned a lot about myself through the pain of the whole situation with my boyfriend and my friends.

I finally realized it was time to distance myself from some of these toxic relationships in my life. As much as I wanted to save some of these relationships, and keep our closeness, I knew that they truly were not there for me and did not care. I learned the definition of a true friend by seeing how many fake, unconcerned friends I actually had. A true friend is there when you’re at your absolute worst and just need positive words to cope, not someone who will bring you down because of the way you cope with a situation. A real friend won't tell you to shut up, or that you're over-reacting, or make fun of the situation you're in. Real friends are there when you are sick, when you are heart-broken, when you feel unwanted or hated, and when you feel like everything is going wrong. Your real friends are there, by your side, holding you up or right behind you, to catch you if you fall. They will see the ugly side of you and won't drop you.

I always heard people say, "You're not growing up if you're not losing friends," so I guess unfortunately this is one way I am growing up. But, to end on a positive note, I am glad I realized who was really there for me and who was not. This even made my friendships with my true friends even stronger and closer. Knowing who I can really trust and who I can confide in is one thing I learned the hard way in my first semester of college, but in the end, it makes me who I am today and who I will become as I experience this independence and finding myself in college.