It’s the fall of your freshman year at college. You’re cruising down the street, windows rolled all the way down, hair blowing in the breeze. You’re with a boy you just met, and he’s driving a manual. It’s your first time riding in one, and you’re not used to the jolt every time he switches gears. Sitting in the passenger seat feels a bit unsteady, but it also feels exciting, because you’re with someone brand-new, cruising down streets you were just introduced to.

You two are having such a great time that you don’t notice a single song is playing on repeat: you’re turning it up/but they’re deaf to the sound/the sound of change. You don’t realize it yet, but this moment is a flicker of what is yet to come, because your life is about to change forever.

Getting through freshman year is one of the greatest challenges you are going to face in college. You’re away from home, probably for the first time, and probably very far away as well. You don’t know anyone except for the few friends you have made. You cling to each other, exchanging a silent oath that you’re going to get through this together. And for a while, that’s okay, up until the moment they decide to walk out of your life. You’re going to discover how easily that can happen.

Freshman year, you’re going to discover that you can easily be that person, too.

Your freshman year is the sound of change. It is the sound of you finally growing up and turning into the person you were meant to become. You’re going to meet new and interesting people, and you’re going to spend a lot of time with them. You are going to have some of your best memories from nights spent with them, days laughing alongside them. Some days, though, they will be the reason why you can’t sleep at night. And while you’re wide awake, you’re going to question why you crossed paths with them in the first place. You’re going to ask why they had to leave you, or why you had to leave them. Either way, you are going to change because of it.

By the time sophomore year comes around, you will discover you know all the words from that song heard so long ago in that car ride. Junior year, you will be in the midst of moving into a new apartment when you find yourself humming along to “The Sound of Change.” You feel a rush of sadness then, because you know that those you once spent so much time with freshman year won’t be there at the end. This feeling only lasts for a moment, though, once you take a look around and see where you are.

You’re on your way into becoming an amazing person. It’s going to feel a lot like your first time riding in a manual, unfamiliar but enticing, cruising straight into the unknown. This is something you couldn’t see, all the way back in the fall of your freshman year, but the ride is worth it. You know who you want to be and who you want to surround yourself with. By junior year, you’re going to know that every person you meet will shape you, and that every experience with them is well worth it, even if they decide not to stay.