Being Alone

I have been lonely since the moment I stepped foot on this campus. And I kept convincing myself that I was doing something wrong. I had to be, because everyone else seemed surrounded by friends and since I was walking alone I was the outcast, right? Wrong. What I had yet to realize then was that college isn’t about finding relationships and making close friends. That would be ideal, and it will happen eventually, but it isn’t necessary to succeed and thrive on campus. You can just as easily thrive on your own.

College is first and foremost about classes. That is the reason we are spending thousands of dollars a semester to be here; to get a quality education. But that is not to say that we don’t learn just as much outside of the classroom. We learn about how people interact, who we jive with and who we don’t, and what we want out of people. We discover who we want to be; what role we want to play in the world. And, yes, I’m not going to lie and say that it has been easy to come to this conclusion because it absolutely hasn’t been. I can safely say, though, that I have learned more about myself being alone in these six months than I have in all of my years in high school.

I have learned that I don’t really agree with the political views of my family, but I am more like them than I thought. I know now that I don’t think I can live in New York City, as beautiful and bustling as it is. It just isn’t someplace that I could feel at home. As a woman, I have tried to understand my role in society and how I can become a kick-ass journalist (mind you, I am only a freshman so I don’t know everything yet!). I have realized that certain people in my past should stay in my past, and I have come to terms with no longer being in high school. This part was harder for me than most, but I finally think I am through the thick of it. Most importantly, though, I have found people that actually click with me and my personality, even though we aren’t as close as I would like. I have come to terms with who I am as an individual, and have an idea of what I would envision my place is in society.

So, the moral of the story here is that I’m okay. I don’t have those close bonds with people like I did in high school, but I have people. Not only that, my true friends at home will always be there for me. We may seem alone a lot of the time in college, but that might be a blessing in disguise. We never know who could come our way next, but until they do, we should be content in the fact that we are learning about ourselves in a way we never thought possible. They say college is the “best four years of your life”. While I don’t think that is entirely true, I do understand the sentiment behind the words. A more accurate statement would be that college is the “most rewarding four years” of your life. I think we gain more from it once we realize that it doesn’t have to mean the same thing for everyone. For me, It is the crux of who I was, and who I can be. And I intend to make the most of it while it lasts, to find out who I am.

• being alone