You did the thing. After years of hard work, exams, papers, and grades you have graduated from college. Now it’s that time of year again. People – some you know, some you don’t – are gearing up to go back to campus and submit once again to the hand of higher education, but not you. And part of you is glad, ecstatic even; you’ve started to carve out a life for yourself, you’re trying out your adulthood and discovering that not all of it is terrible. But there’s another part, a small part that you try to hush with memories of forced late nights and failed tests, that aches. It aches for the familiar halls and haunts that you came to call home, for the friends and professors that encouraged and stretched you, for the community that was yours.
You probably can’t say for sure why you feel the way you do; maybe it’s because you know your friends are gathering from the far corners of the earth and you can’t be with them. Or perhaps it’s finally hitting you that this time you aren’t going back, that that chapter of your life is over. All you can say for sure is that the hurt washes over you from time to time and you aren’t sure what to do about it. I would know, I’m right there with you.
Through the love and wisdom of those around me I’ve come to realize that it’s okay to hurt, to mourn the part of you, you’ve lost. As long as you remember not to lose sight of what you’ve gained. I don’t have all the answers yet, maybe I never will, but I have come up with a few practical steps I can take to help myself adjust to my new identity.
Count your blessings. As wonderful as memories are, they are remarkably hard to live in. You can try, but the only thing you will successful achieve is taking everything you do have for granted. The more you pine for the things you cannot have, the people you don’t get to see all the time, the less you see the blessings that surround you. Remind yourself often of all the have you to be thankful for.
Don’t sever ties with the past. You can’t live in the past, but that doesn’t mean you have to slam the door and bury the key. And yes, sometimes it hurts to miss friends, to only speak to them through technology, but the pain is worth it. Phone calls, texts, video chat; we live in an age when the world has been shrunk to fit in the palm of hands. Hundreds of miles can be crossed in an instant. Take advantage of it.
Embrace the emotions and lean on people you love and trust. The more you try to bottle what you’re feeling the more it’ll tear you up inside. Denying the truth doesn’t make it untrue. It’s alright to cry, if you need to. Let yourself feel what you feel and then surround yourself with people who will lift your spirits and not look down on you for occasionally being sad.
Change is difficult, but it is both necessary and inevitable. We can’t fight it, but we shouldn’t let it pummel us either. You are not alone. You can do this.
