If you’re anything like me, you’ve gone your whole life hearing in some way or another that “boundaries are important” and that you need to set limits for yourself and others. And, if you’re anything like me, you never really had to deal with boundaries until you got to college. For a lot of people, college is their first time sharing a room and bathroom with someone else, or at least someone else who isn’t a close family member. And that can be tough. I know that, even three years in, I’m still struggling with it in some ways. Although I’m used to having people around and living in close quarters, the people I live with have changed over the years. Not only that, but the few people I’ve lived with for more than one year are different in some ways now than when we first moved in together, and I’m sure the same goes for me from their perspectives. Point is, no matter how long you live with people in general, or even with the same person/people, sharing space is hard sometimes.

I’m a territorial person. I love my room. I love being in my room; relaxing, watching Netflix, working on art projects, doing work for classes, hanging out with friends, sleeping, being alone for a while… I love it. This year, I get to enjoy my room even more because I have a single — cannot emphasize how nice this is. Seriously, every night when I get into bed I look around and think, “Damn, I love this room.” But this year, even though I have more personal space than ever before since coming to college, I find myself needing to really claim my space and set more boundaries.

Claiming space has been more of a mental thing, really saying, “Yes, I’m here, and this is where I belong.” This shows up in the way I decorated my room; I’ve moved things around several times, ditching some old items and adding some new. I wanted my room to be a reflection of who I am now, not who I was when I planned my dorm decorations the summer before freshman year. A lot has happened since then, and I want to feel at peace and at home when I’m in my room, not made to feel some type of way by old photos or irritated by the homemade bulletin board that’s kind of falling apart. In a way, too, my room decorations are a way of differentiating myself from my friends and suitemates. I want to walk into my space, and have anyone else walk into my space, and know that it’s mine, and not someone else’s. I feel like I changed a lot last year, and got to know a lot about myself. So, coming into this year, decorating my space in a way that’s reflective of who I am now, instead of who I was a year or two ago, was kind of a physical manifestation of me accepting myself and all those changes I went through. And I have to say, it’s been pretty nice.

In addition to claiming my space for myself, I’ve been thinking about boundaries a lot this year. Physical boundaries like “don’t borrow my straightener without asking first” or “yes this hummus is up for grabs for anyone in the suite but the kettle corn isn’t,” but also more mental and emotional boundaries, like how to treat certain friendships and reevaluating who I really want and need to have as positive parts of my life. Like I said earlier and as we all know too well, people change. Usually this is a good thing, but too often our relationships don’t change as fast as the people in them do. This can be really frustrating, because it can be hard to tell if the relationship can make it through the new differences, or if it has run its course and the time has come to part ways. During this confusion, the only productive thing I’ve really come up with to do so far is to set boundaries for myself. I can’t change whoever I’m frustrated with, but I can change how I look at and think about them and our friendship. I can change my response, in an effort to protect myself from getting hurt by things that I have no control over.

I’ve also found it important to set boundaries for myself about myself. Forcing myself to go to bed at a decent hour (except nights like tonight — should’ve done more during the day, whoops), holding myself accountable for exercising and eating well, and even making a commitment to occasionally doing nothing. Today I lay in bed for a few hours watching "Criminal Minds" and it was awesome. I realized I hadn’t taken a break like that in weeks, and it had probably been over a month since I last took time for myself to decompress.

Claiming my space this year and setting these sorts of internal boundaries have been so important in my sense of self. Not only has it helped me really feel like myself and be comfortable with who that person is, but I feel like it has affected my relationships with others and my outward presentation of self in some positive ways. I don’t know about you, but when I feel like I have a good handle on myself I’m generally more confident, and also a lot more clear with myself and others about what I want out of a situation and/or relationship. I don’t mean this in such a way that relationships and situations are all goal-oriented and based on me getting something out of them. I mean it in a way that when someone hurts me, or things aren’t working in a way that I’m comfortable with, I’m better able to identify these moments and make positive changes.

I guess this year I’ve been being a little selfish. But I’m kind of OK with it, because I feel like it’s made me understand myself better, and act in such a way that’s authentic to who I am and who I want to be. People’s priorities are different, and that’s OK; but that means it’s also OK for me to have my own priorities different from that of those around me, and to sometimes put myself and what I prioritize first.