If you’re anything like me, letting go is hard. When I moved three hours away from my hometown at age 18 to go to college, I had no idea what I was in for. I thought I knew, but I didn’t. You might think you know, but you probably don’t (sorry). College was and is everything I hoped it would be. However, it was hard for me to let go of the previous chapter of my life, because when you start a new one the old one doesn’t just disappear. The hardest part of my freshman year of college was watching everyone else’s lives go on without me. It was like watching what your life could have been play out in front of you. My friends got new jobs, they got married, they made new friends, and I wasn’t there to see it. I wasn’t a part of it. I chose something different.

After you graduate, you’re going to be facing the same situations. You might grow apart from friends, you might miss a wedding, and you might even form an entirely new identity. Many people do when they go off from home. No matter what you do after you graduate from high school, some letting go is going to happen. Some of it may be needed or necessary. Some of it may be unwanted and you may try to hold on a little longer. The point is, you’re going to want some help, because no one really likes letting go. Even if holding on hurts. So, I made a list of books that really helped me get through my first (and second, to be honest) year of college. AKA my first year of letting go.

1. "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro

Quote:

"I half closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I'd ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it..."

2. "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte

Quote:

“I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had the courage to go forth into it's expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst it's perils.”

3. "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott

Quote:

“I want to do something splendid ... something heroic or wonderful that won't be forgotten after I'm dead. I don't know what, but I'm on the watch for it and mean to astonish you all someday.”

4. "Atonement" by Ian McEwan

Quote:

“And though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you.”

5. "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver

Quote:

“It's frightening when things you love appear suddenly changed from what you have always known.”

6. "The Giver" by Lois Lowry

Quote:

“The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.”

Had to include this one, too:

“They were satisfied with their lives which had none of the vibrance his own was taking on. And he was angry at himself, that he could not change that for them.”

7. "All Over but the Shoutin’" by Rick Bragg

Quote:

“They, especially, taught me that you can't go through life not liking people because they didn't have to work as hard or come as far as you did.”

And another:

“I know how silly and paranoid that sounds, especially coming from a man who gets a perverse thrill from taking chances. But it is a common condition of being poor white trash: you are always afraid that the good things in your life are temporary, that someone can take them away, because you have no power beyond your own brute strength to stop them.”

8. "Ava’s Man" by Rick Bragg

Quote:

"The children played hide-and-seek in the wet grass, and chased lightning bugs and put them in a jar with holes poked in the lid, but they never did shine all that much once you put them under glass."

9. "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (Katherine Woods translation)

Quote:

“I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn’t much improved my opinion of them.”