March 20, 2017

It was the day after my spring break. Of course, anyone would have a bad day after coming back from a week full of family, friends, and food. However, me being OCD me, I made my bad day into a worse one.

I had a Chemistry midterm coming up in a couple of days and I was freaking out about it. I felt that I knew absolutely nothing and that everyone else knew everything. This wasn't true, of course, because I studied diligently, but I convinced myself it was true.

In addition to thinking that I was going to fail Chemistry and not get into medical school, I was worried about my friend transferring out of Stony Brook. She's my closest friend here and I spend every minute of the day with her. If she transferred, I felt that I would be lost without her.

So, my concerns this day were that I was going to be, and I quote myself, "alone and dumb."

Whenever I have spiraling negative thoughts, I go to my mom. She is always the voice of reason for me. I then proceeded to call my mother when I was just about to have an absolute meltdown. She told me that everything is okay and I shouldn't be sad. She reminded me that I tend to overwhelm myself by thinking things are a bigger deal than they actually are. And, yes, I do overwhelm myself like that on a daily basis.

So, I then call my friend from home. I tell him my issues to get a second opinion. He consoles me and brings me back to reality. With some rational thinking back into my brain, I began to do chemistry problems again.

... And I was actually getting them correct.

But still, I had the concern of my best friend from college leaving me. I had no idea what I would do without her. She is basically my twin and we never spend one day apart.

Without her, I thought, I couldn't be happy or succeed academically. I have no friends. Once again, the spiraling negative thoughts keep flooding back.

Later on, while I'm in a club meeting, my friend from home calls me again. I didn't answer. He then texted me this:

Hey, I just wanted to tell you that it's always good to put things into perspective. My classmate, who I sat two seats down from, jumped off a balcony and died on Saturday. Be happy that we are both safe, we have wonderful families, and we are happy. Tests and all this don't matter in reality.

All I could think was that "wow, he is so right."

With this on my mind, I tell my friend (the friend that I'm concerned about transferring) about my whole day. I also told her that I was sad that she was transferring. She then said to me, "Gianna, I'm honestly not going to transfer. And even if I did, we would still be friends forever. There is no reason to worry!"

That's when my day completely turned around.

The moral of the story is that although life and college can get difficult sometimes, remember that you are lucky. You are lucky to be alive. We are only blessed with one life and no matter how challenging life can be, we must remember that worrying about petty things is not worth it. In the end, one general chemistry test won't make or break you getting into medical school. And, talk to your friends and family if you're worried about something. Everything will be okay. Remember that "the purpose of life is to know yourself and love yourself and trust yourself and be yourself."