Like many other fellow high school graduates I knew at the time, I was in a committed relationship when my freshman year of college rolled around. Young, naïve, and smitten by the person I thought was my “forever,” I purposely put the “long distance relationships never last” warnings in the back of my mind and thought I was above it all. I personally believed no one knew the true and everlasting love that my eighteen-year-old self knew, and no one could convince me that it was never going to work.

Well, a year later, I wish my sophomore year self could tell my freshman self that I would completely regret that long distance relationship.

Now, I’m not here to say that all long distance relationships stemmed from different colleges are bound to break up. Coming from experience, if you’re in a solid relationship with someone you genuinely love, I know you’ll try to make it last forever – and I completely respect that. I am here, however, to let those of you know who end up in the same boat I did, that your life does move on, and it will be beautiful.

When I went off to college, I was in a yearlong relationship with a guy who was my first love, and who I wanted to be my last love. Unfortunately, two-thirds of my freshman year suffered because of that. I didn’t want to go out because I wanted to stay in and Skype him (and then would become depressed when he ultimately went out instead with his friends instead of Skyping me). When we got into fights, the thought of breaking up legitimately terrified me because I honestly didn’t think anyone else could like me, or could ever fall in love with me. And in the end when I found out he was practically cheating on me the entire time, I still fell back into him when he “would do anything to get me back” because I got sucked into thinking there was no other life without him.

And that is one of my biggest regrets.

Being in love is a beautiful thing, but when it stops working, sometimes you just have to accept the fact that you can’t fix it. You can’t drop a plate onto the floor, tape it back up, and have it be the same plate. My plate had been dropped, thrown, shattered, stepped on, and practically ripped through a shredder, but I only came back with more tape to try and desperately fix it and feel the way I felt when I first fell in love. But soon it came to a point where I realized that it wasn’t love anymore, it wasn’t worth the distance, and I needed to start a new life that did not include someone who constantly had me crying.

I still remember that day I changed my outlook on life and permanently got rid of my ex. It sounds beyond cheesy, like something out of a romantic comedy (which my life sort of is because LOL at my love life), but honestly I always break out into a small smile when I think about how I started picking myself back up towards the end of my freshman year.

My ex brought me to rock bottom, to the point where I thought I wasn’t good enough for anybody to love – let alone think I was attractive. Slowly but surely though, I started going out as a newly single woman, and my God I couldn’t believe what I was missing out on. I didn’t feel bad about going out, I discovered other guys could actually be interested in me, but most importantly, I remembered what being happy was like.

Do I regret my long distance relationship with my ex? No, not entirely. I’ll admit there were points in our relationship that did genuinely make me happy. I do, however, regret not ending it when I knew it should’ve been over. I missed out on months of my college life trying to fix something with somebody who wasn’t even physically with me, and who honestly didn’t even deserve to be with me to begin with.

Life is a beautiful, beautiful, thing, and college is merely four short fantastic years of it. If you are in a relationship that means a lot to you, then by all means do what you need to do to make yourself happy. But if you find out that it doesn’t work out the way you want it to, just know you’re going to be okay. You might find someone else at your college who completely changes your life. Or you might discover being single at college is the best thing for you. Or you may do whatever the hell you want as long as it makes you happy.

Whether it’s going out with your friends, or staying in with a bottle of wine and doing some good ol' Netflix binge-watching, know that you can find happiness in the littlest of things. Don’t regret wasting your time on something of the past, but instead, focus on your sparkling present.

So wipe off that running mascara, own your confidence, and get out there and make your college life worth living. You deserve it.