I am originally from a small town just north of Atlanta called Gainesville, Georgia. I consider myself very lucky to have grown up here. I got to grow up in a town where I could go anywhere and run into someone that I knew but was never far from all the perks of a big city. My neighborhood has Fourth of July parties and high school football games are a community-wide event. I had great friends growing up and my family lived
near by. All in all, growing up in Gainesville was pretty great. Despite all its charm and convenience, I knew that this place was not for me.
My parents always made an effort to expose my younger siblings and me to the world beyond our home. We had explored most of this country before it was time for me to start thinking seriously about college. Every town, city, and state we visited offered new opportunities and ways of thinking. I knew that I would regret it if I did not take the opportunity to catapult myself into the world.
When college applications came around, I only applied to schools far away.
In November of 2015, I decided that I would attend the University of Oregon. U of O is just over 2,000 miles from my place of birth, and I did not know a single person in the whole state. Choosing to go to a school that far away was daunting, but I just knew that it was the next step for me.
The following September my mother and I drove all of my things from Gainesville, Georgia to Eugene, Oregon. By this time, I was really starting to understand what I was doing. It started to feel less gutsy, and more cocky.
I began questioning my whole reasoning for picking this school. Most of my friends were at schools out of state but definitely not a seven-day drive away. What made me think that I could do this?
I put on the bravest face that I could and tried to muster my way through the first term. Let me tell you, it was tough. I had assumed that I would know exactly what to do and that friends would be easy to come by.
I had not prepared myself for the possibility that it would take time to feel settled because I knew that if I had spent too much time dwelling on it, I wouldn't have made myself go.
I made a handful of really great friends who are now my roommates, but I still did not feel at home by the time we returned from winter break. The Oregon rain did little to improve my mood. It was not until spring term that I really found my place. A friend encouraged me to join a sorority, something that I never thought that I would do. However, it was during the recruitment process that I found the people that I had been searching for since I made the decision to leave home.
The girls in my sorority and some friends from classes have opened up my mind. They are all unique, kind, passionate, intelligent, and wonderful. They, too, had struggled to adapt to their new college lives. After we found each other, everything fell into place.
Weekends began to feel like opportunities. Every meal turned into a chance for a discussion. I had finally met people who were also from very different places but thought just like me.
College, without a doubt, changed for me last spring. Before that point, I spent everyday second guessing myself and missing home. It took some time, but meeting my friends made school my new home. Our struggle to find the security that we now find in each other makes us value our relationship that much more. They have encouraged me to become the person that I always knew that I wanted to be rather than the girl that I was in high school.
Together, we have made Eugene a place that we all feel that we belong.
Now, school breaks seem dull. I count the days before I can go back and be in the place I love with the people I love. Although going away was the hardest thing I have ever done, I wouldn't change it for the world.