Rose Colored Glasses
The infamous ‘they’ say that hindsight is 2020 and here we are in the year 2020. They also say we see the past with rose colored glasses. I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting this January 2020; the first month of a new decade and the the first of my last semester of school.
College wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Freshman year was a whole new world of freedom that I was looking forward to and enjoyed. But there were plenty of tough times that happened alongside all the amazing memories I’ve been sharing.
It’s tough to share the hard times. I felt alone a lot my freshman year. I had a hard time knowing how to make new friends and I did everything with my suite that I lived with. While I’m no longer close with most of the people I lived with freshman year, I do look back at all of our good times with extreme fondness (rose colored glasses). I texted my high school friends a lot when I was a freshman expressing how lonely I felt…and often they said the same back. I did feel alone, but I wasn’t alone in feeling that way. I even opened up College Board again and looked into a few transfer applications that I started and never finished. I also never told anyone that. There were countless nights I laid awake staring at my ceiling until 3, 4, even 5 in the morning thinking about if I was in the right place. It got to a point I couldn’t fall asleep because it meant another morning and hard day. Of course, then I became frustrated I couldn’t fall asleep. It did get better eventually and I love my friends here, but it wasn’t an easy road. Sophomore year, when I moved to a new dorm and saw my suite mates from freshman year less and less, it really hurt.
But sophomore year I joined my sorority and made some really good friends. Over the years, some of those friends drifted simply because of time and space. Others truly did disappear when I needed them. But at the end of the day, every relationship happened for a reason and I’m glad I had all of them (rose colored glasses).
For a long time, I put a lot of value into what others think of me. I do still put some value in that, from people I respect. But there was a lot of deciphering I needed to do to find out who and why. I used to become demoralized and distraught over small comments from classmates in my major. I would procrastinate work until the last minute so I knew it was less than my best, fulfilling my fear of not being good at my dream. I would cry over boys I didn’t even know well who said hurtful things about what I looked like. I put so much pressure on myself to make new connections and it manifested in the terrible way of me only seeing and valuing myself as much as other people did…other people that I barely knew, and who barely knew me. Over time I realized how amazing I can be and that there are certain people whose opinions matter…and plenty of people whose opinions don’t.
The posts I’ve been sharing about my senior year have highlighted the amazing parts of my college experience that are easy to tell. I know that none of these difficult experiences I’ve described are unique to me. I know that plenty of college students go through similar struggles. At the end of these four years, I’m choosing to take the lessons from the bad with me and see my time in as positive a light as possible. After all, rose colored glasses look pretty trendy.