I remember when college seemed like a lifetime away. Mostly because I was fifteen, which meant I was amidst the awkward stage of puberty and I had hardly any privileges. I couldn’t even go to the movies with my friends without having to coordinates rides with various parents. Being a freshman in high school sucked. I just wanted the fun to start. College was full of freedoms. You could eat whatever you wanted, stay out at late as you wanted, have friends over and take fun classes. It seemed so much more exciting. I thought the waiting would never end as I watched my brother leave, as well as my friends who were a little older. I couldn’t wait for it to be my turn. Before I knew it, it was graduation day. Then the three months of summer were filled with shopping and goodbyes so before I knew it, I was unpacking my life into a small dorm that I shared with three other girls. I had three 8AMs and averaged about four classes a day, but those were all just more opportunities to run into the love of my life. I was finally at college, where I always wanted to be. This was the dream, right?

Wrong.

First off, the classes were so hard. I had been partially prepared for that by my high school teachers and older siblings, but I breezed through high school and now I was so completely lost in subjects that were so familiar the year before. It made me feel like I wasn't intelligent at all. I really started to doubt myself. Second, making friends was not as easy as the movies made it look. I was in classes with at least 200 kids. I hardly ever even sat by the same person. I did make friends with the girls I lived with and people on my floor, but after having various friends in high school, it was a blow to my confidence to not even be able to talk to the girl I sat next to in chemistry lab. Those experiences were pretty typical for most freshmen, but then I was hit a curveball. I lost both of my grandparents within the first six weeks of college. The shock was bad enough but I wasn’t very close with my roommates yet, although they did what they could to support me, so I had nowhere to go and no one to talk to. I luckily had one close friend from high school that sat at Mirror Lake with me as I sobbed for probably an hour. I really lost myself that semester. I withdrew from mostly everything as I saw myself trying so hard to be someone I wasn’t. Second semester gave me a fresh start. I moved to a different dorm and lived with a few girls I had met from a campus dining job I had. That’s when I finally felt what everyone else in college searches for: acceptance. I was almost a completely different person. I had finally found the friends I had been searching for all this time and they truly made me complete. We signed up to live together for the next year and had this wonderful summer, filled with road trips and concerts. I had everything I had ever wanted.

Before I knew it, it was sophomore year. I was living with my best friends and although we had a super cool RA, we were a lot less supervised than the year before. It would have been ideal to live off campus but having a meal plan and a nice dorm was a good transition period. The first semester was full of fun and freedom. Some of our friends had houses so we came and went as we pleased. Everything was how I imagined it. Second semester wasn’t like that, unfortunately. My classes got harder and living together wasn’t as carefree as we expected. But that’s not what it was. I was starting to change. It was slow at first. A few missed classes or a couple missed homework assignments, nothing I couldn’t make up. Then it got worse. I had withdrawn from everything. I didn’t remember going to class and I didn’t care. I stopped doing my homework and studying for exams. All I did was sleep, cry and go to work. Work distracted me for a while but it wasn’t long before I was being sent home early because I couldn’t stop crying during my shift. I had dealt with severe depression in high school but it hadn’t been this bad in years. Not only did my friends not know what to do, neither did I. I was trapped inside my own head. My parents knew I was struggling but didn’t know the degree until my dad had to come pick me up on the last weekend of the semester, at 2 a.m. because I had a full mental breakdown. It was really rough and I’m not really sure how I survived it.

Summer was finally within reach so I figured a break from school was all I needed to get back on my feet. I spent a lot of time with my friends and worked on my coping skills but when it came time for the fall semester, I wasn’t where I needed to be. As badly as I wanted to go back and as much as I tried to convince everyone else, as well as myself that I was significantly better, I knew I was a danger to myself and probably would have a hard time focusing on school. I knew taking time off was what was best for me, but I still screamed and fought with my parents about it for weeks. I cried almost every day and could hardly even tell anyone that I wasn’t returning for the fall semester. I thought I had failed. That taking the semester off meant I was never coming back. My life was over and I was going to lose everything I had built for myself there. It was heartbreaking. I felt the same pain again when spring semester was a mere three weeks away and because of my mental stability and some financial issues, taking classes at a branch campus was going to have to suffice until the fall. I thought I was drowning my sophomore year and during my time off, I felt as if I had gotten out of the water. It turned out that I had simply come up to gasp for air then was swiftly pulled back down into a dark pool of my own thoughts and insecurities.

Then I decided to change my outlook. I actually accomplished a lot of things during my time off. I finally got a job that I really loved and because of that job, I made some really close friends that I never would have crossed paths with. And not fake work friends, like real friends. We have a group chat and everything. I also bought my first car and am making monthly payments on it. I went to nine concerts this past year. Although I wasn’t in Columbus, I still was up there almost every weekend to see my best friend that I had met from my campus job. He took me to concerts over the summer and to my first music festival and introduced me to all of his great friends that have impacted my life in ways they’ll probably never know. My favorite part was road tripping to Charleston with them in October to see Phish. That was definitely an experience I would never take back. I was opened up to an entire new side of my life. When I wasn’t in Columbus, I was in Cincinnati with my childhood best friend and several of my friends from high school. I was still getting to live the good parts of college. Taking time off wasn’t what I wanted but several of these things wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t. I wouldn’t take any of it back. I was finally a better version of myself.

My dad always told me that college was never a race to the finish. There wasn’t a four-year deadline. It took my brother five years to graduate. He failed a few classes or managed to get by, but now he’s starting his fourth semester of dental school and is doing exceptionally well. My oldest brother decided college wasn’t for him and he spent most of his 20s working and now he works for Lockheed Martin in Orlando, at their corporate office, and is very successful. What I’m saying is, it doesn’t matter how long it takes to get there. Or how you get there. All that matters is that you get to where you want to be in life. It might take me an extra two years to graduate but it doesn’t matter. When I’m successful and happy, no one is going to degrade me because it took me a little longer to get my degree. I had to put myself first. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I also know plenty of people who tried college and it wasn’t for them or just decided to take a different route and they still live fulfilling lives. College wasn’t the dream or the cliché I wanted it to be. While that was disappointing, I still have several positives memories from college and still, plan on going back. Being away taught me that college isn’t everything. It’s more important to be happy and healthy then focus on moving forward. Life is a journey and no matter what route you take, there will always be some detours. Right now, my time off has been considered a detour, but maybe when I look back, I’ll see it as a pit stop. One day, I will finally reach my destination and so will everyone else and no matter how long it took or how hard it was, you’ll be able to look back and appreciate every step of the journey. This whole time I thought I was drowning, but I finally feel like I’m learning how to swim.