Alright so the day I never thought would come—came. I moved into a dorm hours away from home, said goodbye to my friends and family, and started what is supposed to be the “best four years of my life.”

So real talk—my thoughts after week one.

The whole experience is so weird at first. I feel like I’m at overnight camp. Wait—I can leave campus? I can have boys in my room?—(they’re gay, don’t worry Mom). I can go to bed whenever? I can decide what I do and when?

It’s weird. This new independence I guess you could call it, feels like breaking the rules—at least for the first week it does. It’s hard too because although you are having this new experience and want to embrace it, there’s things and people that make you feel as though you’re being disloyal to your past. Maybe it’s just me, but in some ways I feel like this whole thing is just a trial and at any point someone will come pick me up and say that I’m going home and I can’t do this anymore.

I think one of the hardest things of this first week is in those moments where you do feel overwhelmed, you don’t have someone there who has known you for years. Unless you’re one of those lucky ones who is going to college with their childhood best friend—you don’t have long time friends with you here. You are without your security blanket and you’ve got to do it for yourself now. And although I have so many incredible friends already that I know I’ll have for the next four years, there’s moments where you realize you don’t have the person who has seen you at you best and worst for so long and knows exactly what you need to hear.

All weirdness aside—it’s kinda great. I’ve laughed so hard I almost peed, I’ve met so many new people, and I’ve had so many moments where I feel just so genuinely happy. I’ve gotten pizza late at night, made microwave mac&cheese, and listened to SO many musical theatre songs (I’m a MT major it’s what we do.)

I feel so relieved knowing I don’t have to spend hours in class that are of NO interest to me, or be in the midst of drama, or feel stagnant anymore. That’s not to say college will be happy and empowering all the time or that I’ll never be in a boring lecture class—but it feels good to be in a place you love, pursuing what you love with people who share your same interests.

However with that comes to feeling of inadequacy that I think can set in very fast after arriving on campus. You’re a small fish. You’ve worked so hard to be a big fish where you were and now someone has changed your water and you are now a small fish in a thousand fish pond. I think something I’ve reminded myself of many times this week is that I’m here for a purpose, and no one else’s purpose can diminish mine just because they may or may not be similar. Comparison is the thief of joy—don’t spend your first week that way.

I’m building a home. And as cliche as it all sounds, and as funny as it’ll be to look back on these feelings later, I am so happy to be where I am. Surviving week one was a rollercoaster, but it is the inevitable next stage in your life and I want to take it on as fearlessly as I can.

So I’m embracing the change. I miss the familiarity of everything I’ve had, but you have to accept the end of something to build something new. No, that doesn’t mean forget your friends and family—but it does mean don’t feel guilty for putting yourself out there and loving the new experience you were meant to have, and earned. They say the only constant in the world is change, so here’s to week two and all the weird feelings that go along with it.