Like so many other teenagers across America, I will be starting college in less than a week. I will be living two hours away from home, on my own, without the family and friends I have had for 17 years supporting me. It really isn't such a scary thought until you're the one it's happening to, though. I always hated high school and wanted to run off to college — until now, that is. Now I'm spending every minute I can with my parents. I follow my little brother around the house until he says, "Geez, can I have a minute to myself?" I stay out late with the friends I have made over the past four years because I know it won't be the same when I come home. Everything is changing at the speed of light. You know how it feels when you're stopped between two lanes of traffic that move your car side to side while you have no control? That's how it feels getting ready to go to college the first time.
Honestly, it's true that you don't appreciate what you have until it's gone. No more will I get off the bus after a game and speed out of the parking lot with my teammates to get food. No more will I see the faces that surrounded me since middle school. No more will I be able to pull into Senior Lot and rush into school a few minutes late without consequences. All that work to get to the top is gone, and it's hard to accept that I'll have to do it all over again. As Bob Dylan would say, "For the times they are a-changin'."
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However, I would be lying if I didn't find this scary situation exciting. The prospect of meeting new people who are going to college to study the same thing I am is invigorating. Finally, there will be people who have the same interests and goals that I do. They'll understand the way I see things. I'll be treated as an adult and respected as someone old enough to make their own decisions. I can't be a child forever, and, quite frankly, those times are gone.
Nostalgia will always be a killer, though. I won't ever forget the girls I won a state championship with. I won't ever forget my high school counselor who went above and beyond her job for me. I won't ever forget all of the football games and musicals I went to over the years. Even the pointless drives with friends on back roads are memorable. High school is such a time of personal development and growth that the people you surround yourself with become burned in your memory and associated with those feelings. That's why it's so hard to let go sometimes. Even the people who claim they hated it are saddened at the thought of not reliving those times.
I remember a teacher asked me on the last day of school if I would miss it. I told him that I would but that it was also time to move on to bigger and better things. And it is. There's so much the world has to offer that you'll end up missing if you don't put yourself out there. College is the perfect way to do that. It's actually one of the main reasons we go to college. However, I was worried I was the only one deathly afraid of starting college. Everyone I knew appeared fearless and ready to jump in head first. They even started referring to their respective colleges as "home." I'm still not ready to do that, but I know I will be. After talking to a lot of rising college freshmen, though, everyone is both scared out of their minds yet terribly excited at the same time.
Now, whenever I worry about how fast things are changing or if I'll miss the way they were, I just think about how much I would regret not giving myself the chance to see life from a new perspective. That's all it really is, too. A new perspective. You'll still come home. The same people will still be here. You can still text them and look at pictures from past times. You just have to let yourself break away first.
