When you think of college students, what words come to mind? Stressed? Tired? Confused? All definitely apply. However, one word transcends above the rest: Transition.
As students, we're forced to pack up our lives and move away. We're forced to take everything that we have accumulated over the past 18 years, shove it into some garbage bags and attempt to make it fit in a shoe-box-sized dorm.
We move back and forth between our place, our friends' places, and more likely than not, a significant others place. Our life is full of new people, new places and too many things to do. We are constantly on the move. We go to class, we go to the cafe, we go to parties, we go to the library, we never stop moving. We never want to stop moving.
College is one of the most transitional times in a person's life. As we continually grow and find new friends and new interests, we leave pieces of ourselves everywhere we go. It becomes difficult for us to stay settled, to stay rooted, in one place.
Growing up, the first thing our parents teach us is our address. We learn where we live. We learn where we're from. However, the older we get, the further away we move from that set knowledge.
After completing my first year of college, I find myself struggling on where to call home. Do I call the place that I grew up in home? Or, do I call the place that I have made my own life my home?
I've moved my stuff back and forth for breaks. I've spent months away from the place I've grown up, and I've spent months away from the place where I spend the majority of the year. I have friends I have known since I was 5 years old, and I have friends I've known for a few months. However, these relationships seem completely different.
As students, it feels as though we're living a double life. It has become difficult to differentiate between who we were and who we've become. How do we pick which place is our home? How do we pick which person we truly are?
How do we stop this constant transition?
The truth is: we can't. We can't stop it, so we have to embrace it. We have to let ourselves get wrapped up in our youth. This time right now, this is the time that we don't need a set place. We don't need a set time, a set group or a set personality. We don't need rules, or barriers, or anyone telling us what to do. Transition may be difficult, but it keeps us free and it keeps us interesting. Let life take you where you're meant to be.
So let yourself transition. Let yourself grow.
