Dear Freshman Year Me,

It's move in day at school and everything seems like a freeze frame movie — flashes of images move back and forth as Mom unloads your clothes into your dresser and Dad wrestles with the TV. You hear voices from across the hall as your sister scopes out the potential friends you’ll meet, clutching to the last bit of college she has left vicariously through you. Right now you are hell bent on high school and home friends because that’s all you’ve ever known, and let's be honest: you hate change. It’s a lesson you’ll continue to struggle with throughout the rest of your college career and probably the rest of your life, but the harsh truth is that change is inevitable — it washes over you like a crashing wave, pinning you down so hard that by the time you finally pick yourself up you don’t recognize anyone or anything around you. You’ll get a taste of it as college progress and it’ll sting each time: friends will come and go leaving nothing but scattered polaroid pictures from a camera you “accidentally” bought on a Friday night at two in the morning. The point is you need to stop focusing on what you left behind and start appreciating everything in front of you because three years later you’ll look back and realize just how lucky you were. As the family leaves you will look out onto the campus that’ll soon become home and it will all hit you; change is happening.

Here are a few things you will learn:

First, let's lay all the cards out on the table. You’re going to make mistakes. A LOT of mistakes — some small and some pretty huge, but it doesn’t mean that you give up. With each mistake comes an opportunity to be that much better. You’ll meet a disciplinarian at the school who will tell you that the mistakes you make in life will define your character, but don’t let his ignorance blind you. It’s not our mistakes that define us, but rather how we pick ourselves back up and learn from them. Trouble always has a way of finding you and unfortunately sometimes in a big way — but you’ll bounce back, we’re resilient like that.

Kindness goes a long way, don’t forget it. You’ve been bred to be the nice guy who goes out of his way to always help a friend and a part of you wants to change that in an effort to re-create yourself in college. Don’t do it. You were born to help people — to be there when everything shatters because you’re always the guy who picks up the pieces when no one else will. It's one of the greatest qualities we have, and you might not know it, but people appreciate you for it. It’ll waver from time to time when you throw yourself a pity party every now and then, but when people who you haven’t seen in six months come up and tell you how much it meant when you sent them an inspirational text message or had their back when they needed it, you’ll realize just how important you are.

You’re going to meet a lot of friends, don’t take them for granted. If you haven’t already noticed we’re pretty loud and attention is the one thing we seek, so finding friends won’t be that difficult, but being a true friend is something you’ll have to evaluate at college. Friendship is one of the greatest relationships a person can have because it’s not based on sexual attraction or familial love — it’s solely founded on laughter, tears, and the joy of someone’s company. Appreciate each friend that crosses your path because they have come into your life for a reason, you just have to be willing to look around and find it. When you start to notice that you’ve grown apart from some friends, reach out to them. No matter how far you’ve traveled down that winding road you can never forget where you came from.

The cafeteria is not an all you can eat buffet, your waist size, and double chin will be proof of just that. Take care of yourself at school because it’s the first step in crossing the threshold into adulthood. And don’t overstuff the laundry machine either because there ‘s a 99 percent chance you’ll break it.

Call home more often — you might think they’re hovering, but your family worries about you and misses you. You’ll lie to Mom and get caught up in it every single time — you’ll tell Dad about a crazy night that ended with you leading a whole party in the song “Shout” — you’ll confess to your sister all the horrible things you’ve done after three in the morning, assured that she won’t nark on you. We’re pretty lucky with the family we have and you’ll see that not everyone at school is blessed like you are, keep that in the back of your mind when you’re dodging calls and ranting about how your parents are always on your case. When you need them desperately they’ll be one of the few people standing behind you.

Don’t compare yourself to other people — you’re obsessed with this idea that you need to be someone you’re not. No matter how many times you style your hair or change your clothes, you’ll always be you, and that’s a great thing. For some odd reason we can be as obnoxious as we want but we struggle with confidence — start believing in yourself because we’ve got dreams that need it.

You might not know it now, but three years later you’ll be sitting in your apartment laughing with friends and shaking your head saying, “Where did the time go?” Do me a favor, enjoy everything. Embrace the laughter, the heartache, the pain, the friends, the tears, the parties, the teachers, the lessons, and the environment. These next four years are going to be the best ones you’ve seen yet, so stop worrying so much about everything. Jesus, it is annoying. Worrying about the things we cannot change is a waste of energy, start focusing on the now.

So get off your bed, open your door, and smile, because you’re in for the greatest ride of your life.

Best of Luck,

Senior Year You

P.S. I almost forgot, watch out for that poison ivy bush on your first night out, you’ll be reminded of it for the next four weeks.