2015 was wild.

This time last year, I was trying to figure out where I wanted to go to college. I was talking to a boy simply to waste time. I was looking forward to a long list of big things coming that seemed so far away.

Life is crazy.

I went to Disney World with my best friends on our senior class trip and had the best week of my life. We danced to Trap Queen at 2 in the morning and ate chicken nuggets for a week straight. We hosted a snack night on the pool deck with all of our extra food and made friends with people I forgot we even went to school with. I ate breakfast with Winnie the Pooh and promposed to a boy through a vine that I will forever be proud of.

And then we came home and life went on, too quickly. We went to prom. I went with the boy from this time last year, because life is strange and people always mean more than you think they will. It was a crazy night with good food and bad dancing. We wound up at a diner at 2:30 in the morning. It was the kind of night you see in the movies. I only remember bits and pieces because I was so happy but so tired. We spent the weekend away where I wound up listening to the ocean in the middle of the night, out in the sand where I couldn't see anything because of the fog.

On a brutally hot and disgusting day in June, I graduated from high school. I don't remember much, honestly. I was sitting next to a kid who was chewing tobacco but was nice enough not to let me step in it in my heels. It started raining as I waited to walk on stage and get my diploma. We spent the night on a boat where it was cold, and I was exhausted. That night was the start to a summer of looking at the stars and eating mozzarella sticks at midnight. It was the beginning of the end of a chapter.

Over the course of 2015, I visited the University of Delaware and made my decision to spend the next four years of my life there. I started school at the end of August. Over the course of the past few months, I've learned how to successfully do laundry at one in the morning, the perfect combination of vegetables on my Subway sandwich when the dining hall closes before I'm done my homework, and how to successfully get eight hours of sleep while living in a glorified youth hostel. I made friends at school and figured out how to keep my ones from home. I grew up a little but not a lot. I'm a freshman in college: it's in my wiring to make mistakes.

I don't know if it was the best year of my life, but it was pretty damn good.

I miss you, but I don't want you back.

I’m heavy with the weight of missing you, my dear,
And I would tell you how but you’re too far away to hear.

 I'm eighteen years old. I graduated last year, knowing all too well that I would not see 90% of my fellow seniors ever again. For the most part, I was fine with it. We grow up, we move on with our lives.

But there are those few people who I know I'll miss. There will be those days when I can't focus on my English paper and wind up staring out the window of my dorm room, absentmindedly thinking about the people who used to mean so much and now are strangers.

I think there are different kinds of missing people. I miss my friends when I'm at college, but I know they're only a phone call away. They'll be ready to get Chickfila at 10pm our first night back. They might be far away, but I can still reach out to them. We've still got each other, and we both know that.

Then, though, there are the people who I lost along the way. There are the ones who used to sit up with me in my basement until 3am and now don't even know where I'm going to college. There are the people who used to ask me for advice about everything going on in their lives and now I don't even know if they still live in that house where we used to watch the stars from the backyard. I miss those people. I miss the friends I lost because of time and growing up. I miss the people I lost track of in the craze of endings and beginnings that took over the past 6 months of my life. I even miss the people who made a voluntary choice to walk out of my life as I held the door open for them.

But I don't want them back. I don't want to clear the air and dust off the memories for round 2. I think we idolize people from our past because it's easy. We don't want to remember the bad parts. There's a reason, though, why people come and go from our lives.

I'm eighteen years old, and I'm not the person I was when I was thirteen or fifteen or seventeen. I'm not the same person I was before I went to college. People grow and change, and we are allowed to decide when someone is no longer healthy for us, no longer supporting us. It doesn't mean they're a bad person. They're just no longer our person. I miss the people I've lost, and I would love to relive those memories, but I wouldn't repeat them now.

“Things change. And friends leave. Life doesn't stop for anybody.”
 

Operation College

So, I moved in bright and early Saturday morning! It was super hectic and chaotic, but things moved pretty quickly. Thankfully, my roommate was already moved in (she went early for a separate orientation) so she was able to help me and give some tips. She's super nice, and I'm excited to spend the year hanging out with her in the dorm and between classes.

With the help of poster puddy and many Command strips, I was able to hang decorations in my dorm and really make it feel like home. I have one of the larger dorm styles on campus, so we have lots of space to make it feel almost like a tiny apartment with no private bathroom. We're right in the center of everything, with the elevator and bathroom right across the hall, so we've had fun getting to know people as they pass by.

Besides setting up my room, I've been going to countless orientation events where they force us to socialize and think about the future and who we want to be. It's all been a really good experience, though, and I'm happy with my decision to go to UD. I've already met so many nice people. What everyone says about freshmen is so true: we're all in the same boat, and everyone wants to make friends.

Enough about the cliches and typical yay-college. Here are some pictures of my dorm (hoping they might be useful to anyone who's googling for pictures of Redding Hall next summer like I was a few weeks ago)!!

Btw, Command strips are a no-no, but no one told us until after everything was hung and the damage was literally already done, so they let us keep them up anyway.

Here are some decorations on my wardrobe, including some framed photos and a caricature with my friend.
















On the right is my bed, with my tapestry from society6 on the wall. I've also got two bulletin boards on the wall above my headboard!!
















Here's my desk, with my photo collage and some other DIY stuff! The Eiffel Tower painting is actually from France; a friend brought it back for me this summer!












Our "kitchen" has a fridge, microwave and Keurig, along with plenty of snacks. We got the shelf from Target and the coffee mug to hold the K-cups from a craft store.

Textbooks, Packing, and Goodbyes

College, in theory, is wonderful. I love the idea of setting up my own room with decorations and picking out the perfect color scheme that doesn't have to match the blue walls that came with my current house eight years ago. I can't wait to go get meals with my roommate or spend our nights in, watching Parks&Rec and eating goldfish.

The truth, though, is that there's a lot before those really fun things. I've been saying goodbye to my friends for a solid two weeks now, and it never gets easier. It's just one heart-wrenching hug after another and the same promise to stay in touch. I know that we're all going on to great things and that we'll be home before we know it for Thanksgiving and Christmas. It still sucks, though. This is the part no one tells you about, because as quickly as it happens, it's over. I know, in a week, I'll be at school and things will be so great. Right now, though, it feels like my heart is collapsing in on itself each time I think about not seeing my friends for three months.

I'll be fine, obviously. We always are.

Between the hugs and crying, I still have to function and move towards this college thing. I have to order textbooks that cost approximately way too much. I've finally packed all of my dorm stuff up into nice containers and finished printing out photos for all of the frames I've painted to cover up the thrift store paint jobs. I'm not sure if I have too much stuff or not enough, but I'm pretty happy with everything I'm taking (which includes a fridge with a mini freezer for UD's campus-made ice cream)

So, college, in actuality, is bittersweet. As excited as I am to go, I still want to stay right here where everything is familiar. In honor of my dorm decor and my fantastic friends, here's the collage I'll be using as decoration for the back of my desk.

"So no one told you life was gonna be this way . . ."

Hi, everyone!

I used to have another blog for a decent amount of time, but seeing as I'm about to start my freshman year at the University of Delaware, I decided to revamp things a little.

As someone told me yesterday, college is a clean slate where I can be whoever I want to be. With that promise, I've decided to be the best version of myself possible. Over the course of the next year, I'm hoping to document everything from moving in to finding new friends to coming home only to cry about leaving a few days later.

I'm excited to go, but I'm also terrified. I don't want to say any more goodbyes, and I don't think I'm ready to be on my own. All I know is that, at the end of the road, it's all going to be so worth it. I can't wait for that day.

Wish me luck, and good luck to anyone else going back to school this fall!