A Year of Change

As I pack up my dorm room, ready to finish off my freshman year of college, I’m thinking to myself about change. If there is one thing I’ve learned in the past year of my life it is that change is growth.

In high school, I was appalled by the way the previous high school seniors came back and had completely different ways about them. They acted like they were so much different than myself and had new mannerisms and ways of speaking. But, after my year of change, I understand.

Leaving home and moving to college is huge. There is no other way to describe it. You quickly learn what’s important to you and what is not worth fighting for, which goes for people as well. Suddenly, the world is truly yours to take and you get to decide what mark you’d like to make on it.

College is change. Leaving is change. And as much as I’ve fought changes in the past, there is no doubt about it that I’ve learned to embrace them, because change is growing up.

I’m different than I was a year ago. I’ve been plucked out of the town I’ve lived in for 18 years and moved to places that I’ve created a new Anna in - a clean slate, but really just an opportunity. I’m different, but I like to believe that I’m better.

I am choosing who I am now. I go to church willingly, I call my mom often, I have joined a sorority, I choose my classes and if I want to attend, my standards are higher, my speech has changed, I sleep during the day, I believe what I want to, and the list goes on and on. But now, I am nearly positive that I am on my way to becoming the true Anna, meaning the one I am by choice. 

Now as I sit here, thinking of creative ways to get my entire dorm room into my car, I am sad to see this year ending. This year has brought me so much enlightenment and happiness that I am feeling bittersweet about this next step, but then I stop myself. I know better.

My world is changing again, but now I know to take full advantage of it. I have changed, but I am without a doubt still Anna, just a more developed version of myself.  I know that if I never step forward, I will always be in the same place. And there is far too much I’d love to see. J