Changes and Stages

I put on my makeup this morning only to cry it all off a few short hours later. Not because something traumatic or life changing happened, but simply because another day of life happened. As an almost-college-freshman, I am experiencing more changes than I would ever wish on anybody. I am having to buy all new things to fill a whole new place with, one where I will be living for the next year of my life. And though I will be staying in the same town I have grown up in, I will be leaving my childhood bedroom and the comfort of home for a tiny, dull dorm room on the 4th floor of a high-rise building. I will no longer be able to rely on my mom being right down the hall whenever I need her. I will do my own laundry, find my own meals, do all my own cleaning. All of the typical adjustments when going from an at-home high school student to a dorming-college freshman, I will be experiencing. And while all these changes are going to take a lot of time to get used to, they are not going to be the worst part.

No, the worst part for me about starting college is watching my friends go away. It's watching the precisely placed life I've had for the past four years disintegrate into thin air. It's knowing that I'm going to be surrounded by hundreds of new students in my classes, and none of them will know my love for british accents. or my dog's name. or the reason I don't like to wear bracelets. All of the quirky things about me... no one will know! I won't be able to look across the room and burst into laughter simply because I exchanged a look with someone. Every single one of the classmates who made up my last four years will be going off to a new place with new people to sit in new classrooms and not know what the person beside them's dog is named either. I'm sure that every person making this transition understands this feeling in some way, but coming from a class of 19 students, you feel it that much stronger. It is heart wrenching, not knowing... Not knowing what the next four years will hold for you and for those you grew to love so much. Not knowing which relationships will still be there come the end of freshman year and which will be a distant memory... that's terrifying. We would all like to believe that everything will stay the same forever, that we'll just make more friends and have more people to surround us, adding to our already formed life. But sadly, the reality is that change will come whether we like it or not, and though it is impossible to comprehend now, all we are experiencing does have a greater purpose. We may have to drift apart in order to drift back together at another time. We may lose some people because our lives will end up being a little bit better without them. Whatever the reason, it will come. The change will come. And as I hold on to every last moment I have with my current relationships in life, I truly have to hold back tears. It is a blessing and a curse to love so deeply. I choose to see the blessing. I choose to feel the love.