The college I attend wasn’t my first choice. In fact, it was so far from my list that when I ranked my choices, I didn’t even include it.
It wasn’t great, it wasn’t horrible, it simply was.
Now a month into my first semester, I am happy with my choice, but I still catch myself feeling jealous of friends who are attending other schools.
My final semester of high school was saturated with so much potential that I resented having to choose a college; choosing would take away the many possibilities I had invented in my head.
I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the limitless freedom that choice represented. In many ways, I am still not ready.
So, I have taken my frustration out on my friends who are at different schools and on different paths, simply because they represent something else that I could be. I am jealous of them.
But I also miss them; a large part of my anger stems from the feeling that they left me, even though I also left them.
I feel guilty for begrudging them the happiness their college has brought them, especially because I know that for many of them this is the first true happiness they have known in a long time.
Though I can’t stop wondering who I might be if I was at a different school. When my friends talk about the things they’ve done, it sounds much more interesting than my experiences so far.
Many of them have already made amazing new friends, while I haven’t; they’ve already landed a great internship or found a great research opportunity or even just been to cool events around campus, and I have not.
Selfish as it sounds, the solution to my jealousy has been to focus on myself. Yes, I’m not having the same experience as my old friends, and maybe college isn’t what I thought it would be, but I can still have good experiences and make the most out of my choices.
I simply have to get to know myself on a deeper level and take this time to explore who I am with no outside expectations. I have to forgive my friends for not feeling the way I do and recognize that they can’t know how I feel if I don’t tell them.
I have to recognize the blessings and advantages my life and my school have to offer.
Most importantly, I have to let go of the past and embrace the present – in the good experiences, in the bad ones, and everywhere in between.
While jealousy still crops up every once in a while, I remind myself of the ups and downs my friends and I have faced together.
This reminds me that nobody’s life is perfect. I can support their happiness now and they will support mine later.
Jealousy is an emotion, and like any other emotion, I can embrace it fully while working my way through it – and I know my friends will still be there on the other side.