To the girl I used to be,

Here I am now in college and I am sitting here wondering if I am still the same person I was just a short four months ago. I sit back and I look at all the pictures on my phone and I question who I really am. I sit there and think what has changed, what caused me to not feel like I am the same person I was? I cannot figure out what changed because I know I am the same person but I cannot figure out who I am.

Here I am now in a town that I do not know, with a person living 20 feet away from me who I met an hour ago and I do not even know who I am anymore. I sit here and I think that if I was able to make it out of high school then I should be able to make it out of college. I lay in bed at night and I think about if I made the right choice, did I choose the right college? I think about my family who is miles away and I cannot help but feel like I am losing a part of me that I am not ready to lose. What if I do not make any friends like I did in high school? Or worse, what if my professors are not like me or they are so monotone and I fall asleep?

Then weeks start to pass and I feel like I am starting to get the hang of what it means to be a college but I still find myself counting down the days until I am home next. I remember climbing into my old car to head home, hours pass and I finally roll into my old familiar hometown. The only thing is the places and the faces have not changed but I have I just do not know it yet. I park my car in my driveway and everything seems the same until I walked into my old room. My bed has been made but it is clear that no one has slept in it because there is a spot where the cat has been sleeping without being interrupted. The walls are bare and empty because all my belongings are in my small college dorm.

Laying in my old bed it feels so good to be home but then I start to realize that I am missing my second home… I am missing my small dorm room with my new friends. I realize that I have not changed from the girl I was in high school, instead, I am now just the same girl but more independent. I realize that I am now a lot stronger because I have learned how to live on my own without having my parents by my side. I am a stronger woman because I packed up all I had into my old car and moved several hours and miles away from everything I had ever know. I am stronger because I have learned to make a name for myself without being asked who my father and mother are. I realize that I am now just like the girl I was in high school, except I am an even better 2.0 version.I would not change who I have become because this new version of me has become someone who I have always dreamed of being, even when I did not know that I wanted it.