A Summary of My First Year of College

I suppose my first year of college wasn’t a total disaster. My first semester I was on the Dean’s list. In the spring and summer I was on the President’s list. I made lots of friends, was asked out by more than my share of college boys, and by the second semester found myself dating my best friend, whom God had dropped into my life quite suddenly. I had the opportunity to do many interesting things, meet many interesting people and learn many interesting things. After three weeks of being in school, I had a good paying job at the college I attended and was a student writer for an internet-based, nationally-recognized company, and a tech intern for the church I attended. By the second semester, I stopped working for the church due to various circumstances, was asked to return to the internet company, and was also asked to stay on in my student worker position at the college until I graduated. I was held in high esteem by all of my employers and professors alike. I became a pastor’s daughter for the first time in my life, and continued to speak at various youth events in preparation for my future career. I attended my grandparent’s 60th wedding anniversary and attended summer school instead of teaching it. I lived in an apartment for a month and read mounds of books I thought I’d never touch. I stopped playing sports with much regret and had my first real taste of disappointment in not getting into the chapel band nor receiving a part in any theatre production I tried out for. My relationship with each of my parents changed in more ways than one, as did my view of my family as a whole. I learned things about my world I wish I hadn’t and I struggled with my identity often. I got my first kiss and went to my first ball. I learned how to swing dance, two-step, waltz, and shoot a bow and arrow. I went to multiple concerts and at one of them caught a very bad case of heat exhaustion for the first time. It was most definitely worth it. I ripped a hole the size of the Grand Canyon in the back of my favorite jeans while working to set up for commencement and turned nineteen shades of red on the way back to my car. I played video games until I couldn’t move my thumbs and my poetry was published in an anthology of the university’s best student writers’ works. I outgrew T-shirts and jeans, not wearing makeup, and never brushing my teeth twice in one day. My faith was tested, my future was blurred, and my innocent view of the world was obliterated. Some days I wished I could go back to seventeen or seven, on other days I wished I could fast-forward to seventy to spare myself some grief. There weren’t many when I wished things could stay as they were. At least not after the first three months. I’ll be honest, it was hard to seek God’s peace sometimes. I missed home, I missed familiar, I missed safe. I laughed more than ever, but I also shed more tears in that year than I had in all my years before. Whereas years ago I could read a book or close my eyes and disappear for a while into another world and leave mine far behind, I found that reading and dreaming turned into painful remembering and stinging reality. So much so I dreaded letting my mind wander lest I recall my present state in it’s full fury. But now, as I sit looking at the state of things, and the state of things past, I must remind myself that “this too shall pass” as it always has and always will. It was in the times that I did manage to remember this that God’s peace did come.

So whether your first year of college was wonderful, or whether it was terrible, or whether it was the most bitter of sweet years for you as it was for me, just remember that the world is constantly transmogrifying and so are you. It’s like the weather in Texas, if you don’t like it, just wait awhile… it’ll change. Forever learning ~ Rachel