Confessions of 1st semester College Student

“You never really appreciate something until it is gone”. This is a very well-known quote that I never fully understood until now. High school was so easy for me. It was a piece of cake and I breezed right through it easily never having to study for anything while also being involved in so many extracurricular activities as well as working two jobs at one point. Oh how easy and simple life was for me only a few months ago...and yet I thought i had it rough then. I have always had a little of an immortal attitude about me and I am just used to flying through life feeling unstoppable, that is until I entered my Freshman year of college. Do not get me wrong, when I first started I had the same High School mindset as before, and in the beginning I did very well. Life was going good for me. I had a boyfriend whom I undoubtedly loved with all of my heart. I had a new college church group who was very supportive. I had great friends who really lit up my days and were the foundation of all of my happiness and I really was living my life to its fullest and I couldn’t be happier or more content with my life. “You have it all, whatever your heart desires—- Dido’s ablaze with love, drawing the frenzy deep into her bones.” All was well, but rather sooner than later, I would discover why people worry about college freshman so much. Just as fast as all the pieces in my life had fallen together, they started to fall apart. I was experiencing life without my twin for the first time ever and I felt so alone (not that I was actually alone, but there is a certain feeling of emptiness when you and your identical twin separate for the first time in your lives at such a time as entering Freshman year). It took its toll on me. I have struggled with anxiety very badly since sixth grade, and although by the time I entered my senior year I had finally learned how to control it, change always causes it to come back tenfold. So, as I entered my first semester of my Freshman year of college, it was back. Not only was it back but it was worse because of the new struggles that I was facing. It caused me to basically shut down and shut everyone out of my life. I stopped caring for my grades, I stopped talking to my twin everyday (because I tricked myself into believing that I needed to learn to not rely on her to be my best friend because she has a life and is about to get married and does not have time to worry about me anymore). I started pushing away my boyfriend, (yeah as ironic as it sounds, he was the only person I felt actually cared for me anymore since he was the only person to check on be daily and ask about my day, and yet I still pushed him away). On top of that when my parents asked me how I was, I would lie and say that everything was fine. Despite everything I struggled with I felt as if I could not tell them how much I was failing at my first semester because I could not handle facing another disappointment like that. “But where will it end? What good is all our strife?...” I was not seeing the good in life or the good that could come from my struggles. I also could not see where they would end. By this point I felt hopeless. However, during the beginning of all of it, no matter how hard I pushed my boyfriend away, he stayed...until I finally let the demons of my life take control and cause me to do the last thing I swore that I would do this semester…break up with him. I don’t know what I thought it would help, because it only made things worse for me. “Lost as he is, she’s lost as well”. I didn’t know what I was doing with my life anymore, I felt alone, and to top it off I had truly made myself feel finally alone. However, that is not where my story ends. My God is way too faithful to let me end my story there. “From now on, Dido cares no more for appearances, nor for her reputation, either..”. From now on, I would stop focusing so much on the negativity of my life , but instead focus on the things I have to be thankful for, and the one who blessed me with all of them. This change in me did not just happen though. It took a lot for me to begin to focus on how much I am truly blessed and how minor my struggles were compared to others people struggle with. At church, a group of young girls (whom I am a pat of), started to sit with widows on Sundays. I started noticing that my friends do check on me more than I thought and I realized that my God was bigger than the struggles i was facing. I grew up believing that but until now, I don’t believe I truly understood its true meaning. I began to listen to God's word and what it was trying to tell me and when I did that i found a reason to be thankful and something good in my life to focus on. “Say too my soul, I am your salvation. Speak to me so that I may hear. See the ears of my heart before you, Lord. Open them and say to my soul I am your salvation. After that utterance I will run and lay hold to you. Do no hide your face from me. Lest I die, let me die so that I may see it.”  My first semester of college was not at all how I thought it would be. I struggled more than I have ever struggled before...but, in the end, it all led me closer to the Lord and I could not be more thankful.