I remember finishing up my last few weeks as a senior in high school and fantasizing about finding the love of my life, going to crazy parties and landing an amazing job.
But in reality, that wasn't the case.
College wasn't the ride that I'd hope it would be. In a way it was a lot better than I expected but it proved more difficult to go through as I lost myself to find who I wanted to be and where I wanted to go. Everyone talks about how college is fun and full of adventures but no one ever talks about how lost you can feel and the intense pressures that come with "adulting".
Picking classes might just be the easiest thing to do during this rollercoaster of a ride - but sometimes that's even hard when you're waiting until your time slot opens and you find yourself fighting with thousands of other students to get into the best classes with the best professors. I remember walking through campus during orientation with all the other incoming freshman thinking to myself, "the world is yours". And well... it is, but it won't always be in the way that you think it is.
I was naive walking into my first semester of college. I thought I knew it all, knew what I wanted and knew how to get it. As the days went on I found myself realizing that I didn't. I ran into a few bumps in the road that made me question everything I was doing and why I was doing it. I was afraid of failure and disappointment so my thoughts swarmed around what the easy route would be for me. What could I do that would get me out of college with a decent job that I would probably hate waking up to go to. I lost sight of my passions and almost gave up on myself a few times.
I went from being ready to take on the world to being afraid of stepping my foot outside my room's door.
As scared and sad as I was I didn't realize that this was okay and completely normal. You don't have to have it all figured out. Being young and making mistakes go hand in hand. Granted in the moment it might seem like the world is ending is you have no other choice but I realized that these next four years or so are about finding your way after the mistakes. Making the wrong choices is only half of the equation. I worried so much about what I was doing wrong that I didn't focus on what I needed to do to get back on track.
Learning to forgive myself was probably the hardest thing I had to learn but the most satisfying. Once I realized that the world isn't going to end I let go of all my fears and chased after my dreams. It's not all that its cracked up to. There are days where you'll struggle to make it to even your afternoon classes. You may feel what real rejection feels like when you it takes months before hearing back from one of the many companies you applied for an internship. Take it with a grain of salt and just keep swimming.
So yeah when life gives you lemons, you make a nice hard lemonade.
