Letter to My Freshman Self

Oh self. You're off to college so soon and you feel so excited. This picture was taken at freshman orientation just two short months before you would become a full-time student. I can tell you prepared extra hard for this day: your hair is curled (only do that when you're really trying to look good), your lips glossed, and you've got sparkly earrings on. 

I know you think you were so cool because you made the facebook group for your class before coming to school and so many people had already friend requested you or at least knew your name....but here's a little tip. Don't let it get to your head. It's just a silly facebook group. After the first week of school, no one will really remember it anyway.

Be careful how you talk at orientation. Philip will think you are stuck up and hold it over your head all throughout college, but don't worry. You'll become best friends after he gets to know you. 

So now your at move in day. Don't worry, having a third roommate will turn out fine. You all will get along great. You'll make so many great memories with those two girls, and they will be there for you when you need them the most. Also, the girls you meet and hang out with on your hall for the first day will turn out to be your best friends here at school. That girl Caroline? Don't worry, she does like you. You will spend many hours together watching Gilmore Girls and crafting. Enjoy those hours together!! After college you won't be able to just walk down the hall to see her.

Orientation week will be a blast and so much at once, enjoy it. You won't get homesick until the first Saturday after move in week. Don't worry, you don't need to get upset. Do some homework and talk to people. You are fitting in just fine. More plans will come along soon.

Don't worry that all your friends from home went to college together. You will all make different friends and spend some time apart, but you will still be friends at the end of it. Try to avoid big fights with close friends, but if you have to make sure you make up properly and not let hard feelings linger. 

Don't be so judgmental. I know you secretly think that anyone who stays in their room alone on a Friday or Saturday night or goes to bed before midnight on an intervis night is a little bit of a loser.  But here's a tip: you don't have to have something exciting planned for EVERY day of EVERY weekend. And here's a big shocker: you will turn into these very people you judged. Yup, that's right. Judge that self. 

Don't go so crazy about boys.  I know you came to college planning to find your husband, but just enjoy making guy friends and not analyzing how each and everyone of them feel about you. Hair guy? Nope he doesn't like you. Fun guy? Nope not him either. Don't be so desperate. Analyze what you are getting into and why. You will experience multiple heart-aches this first year and I wish I could go back and change things for you, but in reality I know that I can't and you will be forced to learn from these experiences and grow from them. 

Here's another real shocker for you: you WILL find your husband during college, but he's not from your school. He's from back home and you will meet him the summer after your freshman year. So really you don't need to worry about boys at all!!

Don't question whether you should study abroad or not: it will be the best experience of your time at college. But enjoy your time still on campus, you will be abroad one semester and will be graduating a semester early as well so your time at school will be cut short.

Enjoy where you are. Enjoy the friends you will make and all the memories you will have doing stupid things and being young. Enjoy being at a campus where being an open Christian is respected and encouraged. Enjoy being around people with the same political beliefs and the same motivation to do well in school as you.  Learn from the teachers you will have, the wisdom gleamed from friends, and all of the life lessons you will be forced to learn throughout these next years. Don't go on facebook as much during class. Be nicer to people. Eat healthier. Read your Bible more. 

These three-and-a-half years will fly by, and before you know it you will be sitting in your bare college dorm room after finishing your last ever college final, listening to Adele, writing letters to yourself, and realizing that while you are so happy to be done and going home to soon, you will never again get this kind of experience again. You will be off to start real life with a real job and a real almost-husband.  And just for that night, you will be sad for the friends and the community you will have to leave behind in the morning. For only then, I guess, does the real adventure begin.

Love,

Me