hey hi wow miss me much? A little under two weeks of no blog posts and hopefully you’ve been catching up slightly via my occasional insta posts updating you on my life. My last post was an update on me feelin’ a little bit under the weather…that only escalated for the rest of the week and I went to maybe 5 classes all week due to being cooped up in my bed coughing my little heart out all night&day. The college plague for sure caught up to me last week and happened just in time for me to head home for fall break for the weekend. Don’t get me wrong, I adore all my pals here on campus, but I absolutely needed some quality time my people back home. I got lots of homemade meals, dates with my parents at my favorite local food places, and a little bit of shopping in with my mama. Not to mention lots of cuddling with my pets & little brother too!  I headed home this past Friday and today (Wednesday) was my first day back at classes. It felt good to sit in a classroom after being sick in them the last time I was here, and after my professor last minute cancelled my 8 am late last night, I got to sleep in and not head to class till noon, got to 2 hours worth of class, and head to a therapeutical Target run to get some goods to get me through the week. Pretty easy start to my time back if ya ask me!

Back to my time at home-I miss it already. I was reading a blogger my same age’s post today on her truthful college experience (Frannie’s post here!!!) and was hit with a little sigh of relief knowing I am not the only one who feels these kinds of feelings. I know it can be hard to listen to me say this after I have only been here for around 2 months with going home twice for the weekend already, but freshman year of college is HARD. 

I have been told my entire life that I was going to thrive in college. I am very independent, I think that comes from being an oldest child with a 4-year age gap between me and my closest sister. I have always been very self-motivated in terms of things I need to get done. & not to toot my own horn, but it is something that I am very proud of, I am a very responsible and I like to think mature person for my age. I loved to believe all of these people who told me I would do so well in college. I have always known I was going to attend the University of Kansas. My dad went there and was a diehard Jayhawk (and still is!) He has talked about how much he loved it there ever since I can remember and my entire family gathers to watch basketball games every season. There are pictures of me in “future Jayhawk” onesies as a baby! My parents did not choose my college for me by any means, the choice was fully up to me, but I had my heart set on getting out of state, away from my hometown vibes, and with my dad being the coolest person I know, I knew being a Jayhawk was it. I only applied to KU. I got in, signed my housing contract as soon as I was able to, and listened to all my friends as they dealt with college decision stress while I basically was already packing to move out. I had my heart set on this being the time of my peak like everyone had told me it would be.

I promised myself not to get too ahead and to live in the moment senior year. I like to think I did. Some of my best high school memories are for sure from the times I let myself not be too excited for college and simply be a high school senior: going with all of my gal pals to winter formal together, every single student board meeting with that amazingly talented and cool group of girls, hitting the peak of my speech career with my best friends, and so many more senior moments down the line. I worked tons in the summer preparing myself for the very harsh reality that is college freshman money management, but as soon as August rolled around, I was ready to go. I had these big dreams of putting my life into play as a big cool independent college student and was ready to pursue them. I am very big into family and sure we all cried when they dropped me off and I tried to not look back once they left my dorm. Rush week kept me busy too many hours a day and the first week of classes I was far too excited about the change to process any emotions really.

and then came the second week of college.

I wasn’t feeling so hot about my major after going to my education specific classes, I felt uncomfortable about the social scene, and I missed my family more than I ever imaged that I would. I didn’t go out a whole lot in high school, not because I disapproved of it, but because I am a firm believer in finding your strengths and what makes you happy and living your life around that. I am a homebody. I am naturally an introvert (which genuinely surprises so many people) and no, I am not anti-social, I just know how to make friends with MYSELF, which I think is something a lot of people struggle with doing, but learning to be alone is something that we all need to know how to master. So being thrown into the social scene that is college (& let me tell you , there is one, especially at a huge school like KU) really threw me for a loop. I was crushed between my comfort zone and knowing I was supposed to hop out of that zone during these years of my life but that in general was SO HARD for me & still is today. I held back tears every time that I called my family because I wanted them to feel like I was doing great (this was a stupid move, your parents are there for you through EVERYTHING and learning that they even kinda sorta want you to miss them a bit was a huge breakthrough for me), and would genuinely get so upset whenever my mom would read my texts and not reply (this sounds SO silly and knowing my mom she probably didn’t even realize she read it because she was focused on my other three siblings, like she should be, but i was REALLY emotionally unstable okay) and I cried almost every night and honestly didn’t even know why I was crying. The first time I came home for Labor Day, i was there for a weekend and could NOT stop crying the day I left. My parents were super concerned that I didn’t like it at KU and I couldn’t tell them enough that that was by far not the case. I absolutely love it here, like I always knew I would. I love a majority of my classes, I have met so many cool people, I am in love with Alpha Chi, and honestly do love the freedom at times. The only way I could think I could of phrasing what was going on in my head was “I want to be there, but I want you all to be there, and I want myself to be there.”

In high school, not going to dance around it, I had my shit together. Especially jr/sr year, I was good friends with so many people and so many stable relationships, I was running student board and absolutely loved that, I was working and had a consistent income, not to mention my home had everything I needed and if it didn’t I was a 2 minutes car ride away from Target, and in college…I don’t have all that, and as a creature of insane habit, not gonna lie, all that change and dependency being taken away from me, it freaks me out a whole lot.

Well, I am two months & if there is one thing I want to let you all know that I have learned: expectation and reality are two very very very different things. And that is OKAY. 

I feel almost guilty at times that I am not doing something right in terms of how I am going about “college.” My friends talk about never wanting to go home, loving every second, having the time of their lives, and how much they love the freedom. I honestly cringe every time I hear them refer to our dorm as “home.” I think it is the voices of everyone who told me I would thrive haunting me and making my inner monologue a constant “why aren’t you thriving yet?” To be honest, I’m not yet. & it has taken me a long time to admit it, but that’s okay. I don’t think of this as “home” quite yet, and that’s okay. It has taken a lot of teary eyed nights and a lot of confidence boosting from close friend and my family but, I know who I am, and I know that change can be scary, even for the most confident of people. As of now, my main task at hand is understanding that freshman year of college is GONNA be hard. That it is something I WILL have to work through, and that there is a whole world of plans that God has for me waiting on the other side of this mountain.

I am using next semester to try out classes that I have interests in to make sure that my major really what I want to dedicate time and money pursue. I am pushing myself to constantly meet new people. & over and over and over, I am telling myself I’m okay.  SOOOO THANK YOU for letting me use this corner of the web as my virtual diary, but most importantly, if you’re going through, or went through, or are terrified that you’re GOING to go through the same thing: it is OKAY. your feelings are valid, and are never wrong. so grab some coffee, call your parents, and be you.

until next time, xoxo,  Ally