The beginning of college comes with plenty of guarantees: overpriced textbooks, Natty Ice, 8 AM’s, and a fresh start.You’re free of your parents, your lame 11 PM curfew, and anything that could have possibly held you back in high school. Everything is new: new friends, new experiences, parties every night of the week, new boys, and you are faced with scenarios that you could have only imagined.

I know I was so excited for all of this. I absolutely loved my town and the people and memories I had in the place where I grew up, but the end of high school was something I definitely looked forward to. I found myself at college with a huge group of friends, talking to a guy that I really liked, and being happy all the time. I thought this was my fresh start, my chance to live a life independent of my parents and the people I had spent most of my life with.

I had this perfect picture in my head of what college was supposed to be like, but no one told me about the difficulties and hard times that inevitably happen when you start over. To be honest, the perfect pictures in your head never work out. Your syllabus week friends from freshman year fizzle out as your social circle expands, the boy you like turns out to be a shady, frat star wannabe who in reality only wanted you because he knew he could have you, and your immune system starts to shut down the way you fall asleep-slowly, then all at once. How is a girl supposed to have a fresh, new, cool college experience when your life turns into a series of unfortunate events overnight?

I suppressed any sadness, disappointment, anger, basically any emotion that could possibly wreck this fresh start of mine. I replaced feelings with Burnett’s, and fears with parties, and somewhere along the way I lost my sense of who I was. On paper and social media, I had it made. By the end of my fall semester of sophomore year, I had a 3.5 GPA, a job, amazing friends, and hilarious stories to tell my friends (that I hope my parents never find out about). And yet, I felt as empty as I ever have. I loved my major, but I felt hopeless about my future. I loved my friends, but I wanted to be alone all the time. I came into my Spring 2017 semester with two choices: continue the path I was on, or try something new.

I opted for the latter, and I couldn’t be happier with the payoff. During my first month back, I went out for recruitment and applied for a job. I ended up in an awesome sorority filled with girls who make me laugh and friendships that are irreplacable. I got a job with one of my best friends, and we also signed a lease to live with 3 other girls. I pushed myself to do everything I possibly could, while keeping my grades at the top of my priorities, and it all paid off.

Fresh starts aren’t always as easy and perfect as they seem, and sometimes you have to go through some shitty situations in order to get to them. Nevertheless, they do exist, and they can happen anytime. As One Tree Hill said, “The rest of your life is being shaped right now with the choices you make, the dreams you chase and the person you decide to be”. I could not be any happier with the person that I am becoming and the decisions that I have made to get me to where I am now. It’s never easy to let go of the person you once were, but is totally worth it to eventually be who you always wanted to be.