I moved down to South Carolina two years ago this May- from living in Massachusetts my whole life, so yeah you could say it was a big change — one I wasn't entirely looking forward to.

Those first few months were hard — I was adjusting to living in a completely new place with not knowing a soul. I'm going, to be honest, these two years living in the south have not been easy for me, so in January of this year, I decided it was best for me to take a semester off.

Most people think that taking a semester off means you're never going to go back to school again.

I mean I was going through a rough patch and my parents saw that little glimpse for a short time. I know my mom was concerned that I was becoming depressed and maybe for a short time I was.

With that said, I moved my stuff out of my dorm and back home.

The first few weeks were hard, because I thought I was going to lose touch with my friends, and I was going through a huge change.

After the final realization set in, I continued back to where I had been working for the past two summers. And let me tell you, I was bored as hell. I made the point to come and visit at school every few weeks so I could see my friends, even though I had only lived here for a little over a year, there's a piece of me that still considers Charleston to be my home.

I continued to work as the season started picking up slowly but surely. In that time period, I started to recognize something. I was realizing that these people I was working with were starting to become my family.

As comfortable as I was getting there, I knew in the long run that I was going back to school in August.

Flash forward six months and I moved into my house to continue back at school, looking back on these past eight months, a lot has changed. I feel that I have grown up from what my little 20-year-old party self-used to be. I have met some incredible people, which has turned into some amazing relationships that I couldn't imagine losing.

Everything happens for a reason, I'm still trying to figure out what that reason is, but because of it I'm stronger.