At the end of my first year of college, there was relief that I had made it through the madness and sadness that the first chapter of my college experience was coming to an end. College is weird that way. While you are in it, you are stressed about deadlines and papers, and you nag about all the stress that comes with the collegiate experience. Then, you blink and it’s April. Finals are coming, and you're more stressed out than ever before. Then, out of nowhere, your roommates start packing. The people you have surrounded yourself with for the last eight months start talking about going home and their plans for the summer and it hits you –– your freshman year is pretty much over.
The nostalgia kicks in and so does the fear. The fear of going back to your hometown, potentially hours away from the new family you made at school. The nostalgia, looking at the amazing memories you created over the past two semesters with the people that were right across the hall. All of the fear and memories are flying into your head and it is difficult to sort what you are feeling. It is an endless stream of what if’s and hypotheticals. What if my high school friends forgot I existed? What if my family has gotten comfortable without me around? What if we all leave this summer and come back different?
But then, your mom calls you and tells you your room is cleaned out and waiting for you, and your friends from back home call you, making plans for the summer. Your roommates talk about you coming to see them or them coming down to see you and you start to realize that you may be leaving one home, but it is to go back to another one. College gives you a lot of things but the best is having two homes, two places where you are surrounded by people you love.
Before moving to college I had my family and friends that I have had since Kindergarten. The people who have seen every awkward phase and bad haircut and watched me grow from a clumsy, disproportionate child into a slightly less clumsy teenager. Then you have the people you meet in college. The people who got the clean slate you. The scared, vulnerable, freshman you. They were just as timid and had the same reasons you did to interact. They grew with you in ways the friends back home couldn’t even imagine and the fear that your group from high school may all be wildly different now just like you are is valid, but then you remember, if that is the case, you still get both. You get the people at home, you get the people at school, and you build this amazing community of people to support you in any aspect of your life. If I've learned anything during my first year of college, it’s that support, anywhere you can get it, is a beautiful thing.
