a year of love, fear & power outages

How to begin the story of my sophomore year of college is a question I may never know how to answer. To begin on day one, I got to Sonoma with my dad after 10 hours of driving and rats had chewed absolutely everything in my storage unit. A lovely beginning to say the least. However, if you know me, nothing could have dulled my excitement for the first day of school. The first day of college is a little bit scary mixed with excitement and anticipation. The first day of the SECOND year of college is pure, genuine excitement. Familiar faces moving into the dorms around you, finding out who your neighbors will be and seeing all your people for the first time in months. Plus, I bought a fish! However, sophomore year did not quite go as planned. Today I am finally ready to share with you the lessons I learned from year two.

It’s okay to outgrow people who aren’t growing. 

The biggest lesson I learned my first year in college happens to be the biggest lesson I learned my second year as well. Last year, I thought I moved from one era to the next. Now, I understand that the “next era” I have entered is an era of constant change. Last year, I thought I found my forever friends. They taught me to let go of the relationships that were holding me back. I took their advice, and I wish them well. Promise yourself better, and never look back. This year, I learned what it means to hold yourself and your relationships to a higher standard. As I begin my twenties, I understand that I have no need for below average relationships. As an independent, motivated woman I simply cannot accept the level of ignorance that some people choose to settle for. I learned that the best thing I can do for myself is to choose people who are also passionate about growth, justice, change and self-love. Letting go of the people I once loved so much was hard, but it is incredibly empowering to be able to say “this is no longer serving me” and walk away in peace. I saw the most beautiful period of growth in my life and I couldn’t be more proud.

You can’t control what is happening, but you can control how you respond. 

The first disaster of the semester was when the air quality was so bad from the surrounding fires that school was cancelled for a week. This had happened the year before, but that time the power had not been shut off. To be stuck in a dorm with no light, no refrigeration and nowhere to go you begin to feel scared. After throwing away all of the food in the fridge, I decided to drive all the way home to San Diego. To choose familiarity in a time of crisis was my way of finding safety when I felt unsafe. I was grateful for the time at home, but I wanted life to go back to normal. Little did I know life would soon become extremely abnormal. After returning back to school and the power outage ended, my roommates and I all went grocery shopping and continued our normal routine. Not long after the first power outage did the second one begin. This time not only was the air quality bad, but the fires were close. Two of my roommates were already home for the weekend, so it was just Ashley and I when the RA knocked on our door and told us we had an hour to evacuate. Both of us being from Southern California, we had no idea what to do. We both packed up, got in my car and drove a couple hours to our other roommates home. Forever grateful for her and her parents during that crazy time. After a couple days, Ashley ended up flying home and I went to stay at my boyfriends home and then my other roommates home for the remainder of the time. We made the most out of the situation, but it was unsettling and scary to go from routine to chaos in the matter of minutes.

We all hoped the spring semester would be less disastrous than the fall semester, but we were all wrong. Ending the semester months earlier than expected due to coronavirus was hard to wrap my head around for quite some time. Rushing to sign a lease so that we wouldn’t loose our jobs and moving from the dorms into the new house during the start of online school while being an essential worker was a high-anxiety time of my life. Everything kept happening so fast, I barely knew what to focus on. Having an empty, new house during a time of chaos made me feel isolated and scared, which made the entire situation as a whole worse. My mental health declined, my physical health declined, and I struggled in work and school. I am not writing about my defeat during the pandemic, I am writing about my growth. How I was able to control my response to a situation I had zero control over. I ended up learning how to prioritize myself; working out in the mornings, making myself breakfast and getting ready for the day made a big difference immediately. The days I did not have work I did my homework outside, I created DIY projects for myself, and I got plants to care for. Taking care of myself when I could not focus on anything else allowed me to truly understand what it means to love yourself first.

Don’t just be good to others, be good to yourself too.

Checking in on the people that I love is extremely important to me. During this pandemic, I found it harder and harder to check in on others because nobody was doing well. Everyone has lost aspects of themselves and what gives them comfort or security. When you check in on the people that mean the most to you and everyone is struggling, it hurts you. I felt even more sad and even more unstable when I knew everyone else was feeling low. I was checking in on others, but not myself. I was lacking in my leadership roles, and I was giving up on myself. Becoming the Panhellenic President that had to execute a virtual recruitment made me want to quit at first. I was getting so many questions as to how it would work while I was simply trying to finish finals online. Nothing made sense and I wanted to lock myself in my room and hide- hide from the virus, hide from the responsibility, hide from the world. During my summer in quarantine while I learned what it means to love yourself first, I gained a new respect for myself and the work that I am doing during this difficult time. In ten years, I will think back and recognize that I was the Panhellenic President that successfully planned a virtual recruitment during a global pandemic. I was able to be successful in my credential program and became a teacher despite the virus that affected my education. I ended my sophomore year in a mess I could not control, and it hurt me. But I learned, I have grown, and I am so excited to face the historical junior year in quarantine.

When things change inside you, they change around you.