Dear freshers,
If there is anything I want you to know as you join that first-year friend group (and leave it), struggle with unnecessarily confusing assignments, and trek it home from Fubar at an ungodly hour, it is this:
You are allowed to change and grow throughout these coming four years of your life. It would be unreasonable to assume that you won’t discover old and new parts of yourself in the social whirlpool that is university.
As I sit in my second year, big-girl flat, packing up my life… yet again, I find an old perfume bottle. It is quite surreal: that whiff of the past that reminds you how much time has gone by and who you once were. The dainty red bottle holds the memories of this once silly little fresher. It is a distinct cherry fragrance that mixed everything I thought I knew about myself and everything I didn’t yet know.
Once your first year is over, it may be easy to relax in the knowledge that you are older and wiser. You’ve survived your first year! But the truth is that this is only the beginning. Most of us are young, and life is full of new people, relationships, mistakes and blessings.
Many of these experiences are painful and involve other people’s feelings. As much as we like to nod our heads and say, “people never change” when someone has hurt us, it can’t plausibly be true. The smarting reality is that one day they will change, but that is, by no means, within our control.
People change people, but you can not choose how that happens for another person. You can barely choose it for yourself when university life demands you to immediately know yourself well enough to know ‘your people’.
Already by the end of your first semester, many of you will be faced with a choice to make. The question often creeps up with an ominous wave of uncertainty: “Who will I live with going into second year?”
As much as I hate to admit it, because I genuinely cherish the friendships that I’ve later grown apart from, this is where desperation often triumphs over discernment. Of course, this is also understandable when the time flies by amidst all the fun and coursework stress.
So what is there left to do other than to simply let things happen? The answer is quite simply to do exactly that, and to keep on doing it. That last part is crucial; let it happen. Let yourself grow, evolve and meet new people along the way. I hate to break it to you, but you are entirely responsible and free to change at any point in your life.
Simply letting things happen to you sounds reckless, and the last thing I mean by it is to ignore your instincts and feelings. Quite the opposite: run towards what feels true and, most importantly, towards what facilitates your own growth. It may mean saying farewell to those you made those first-year memories with. But nothing, and no one, is more important than your right to change.
And while some people can not face mourning the version of you that once was, let those who value your joy enter into the future with you. It is a beautiful thing to see your friend heal the hurt parts of themselves and become a happier person. But everyone will not be able to see it that way. And you know what? That is ok too.
This is what I mean by simply letting things happen. For lack of a better metaphor, that skin will start to shed when you are ready. That is when you either let it fester for the sake of others, or you let it go.
I am fully aware that this can be daunting: to leave an environment, a group that felt safe when the uncertainty of first year loomed over your head. Yet in hindsight, I see now that losing myself was never worth my comfort. But more importantly, I have realised, as I have become more myself again, that it was never worth others’ comfort either.
It will never be your duty to stop evolving simply because someone can not mourn the loss of who you used to be. That has nothing to do with you anymore. In the same way, you may need to mourn your idea of who someone might one day become; they will have to accept that you are getting older, wiser, and hopefully also happier.
I will say it again. People change people, but each individual’s change is not to be managed or determined by anyone other than themselves.
As I take a second whiff of that bittersweet cherry-scented perfume, I smile. Some memories, lessons and all, sting more than others. But the growing pains were worth the person I am and continue to become. What ultimately assures me is that this scent is the reminder that, just like the fading quality of perfume, no version of myself will ever last forever.
Featured image credit: Kristina Wikensten