As someone who didn’t necessarily grow up listening to Taylor Swift, I never knew that her song “You’re On Your Own, Kid” would resonate with me so deeply when I went off to college.
When thinking back to my childhood, the main thing I could take away from my memories is that I grew up extremely independent. It isn’t like I was not loved or neglected in any way, but when it came to decisions, I began making them for myself at a very young age.
I flew from Moscow to Paris by myself for the first time when I was seven years old.
I started taking care of my newborn sister full-time at the age of eleven.
And I began booking my own doctor’s appointments at fourteen, along with figuring out a ride there.
For as long as I could remember, I found myself stressed about figuring out adult issues while my friends worried about the lunch their mom packed them that day.
I began the countdown to my eighteenth birthday early on.
But when it came to it, turning eighteen was one of the most emotional times of my life.
I think it was difficult to wrap my head around the fact that I no longer had a safety net behind everything I was doing because no matter how old I thought I was, I was still so protected by the limitations of being a minor. It was easy to pretend I was old when in reality the final say of everything I was doing came down to my mother. And many of the decisions I made, she disagreed with.
For her, being strict meant that she was protecting me from the world, but for me, our disagreements chipped away at my drive to take risks and do what my heart desired. My high school years were a seesaw – a balance between getting independence and it frequently being taken away from me.
Because of this, growing up and going off to college on my own seemed so liberating, and honestly, it ended up being one of the best things to ever happen to me.
It felt like flying for the first time. It was like taking the chains off my ankles and sprinting into the abyss of an unknown future. It felt like the pounding heartbeat you experience before flying down the largest drop of a roller coaster, after hanging over it for what felt like hours. I was finally able to do the “adult things” I was doing my entire life, but now actualize every plan I had created over the years.
While the change was an adjustment, it was relieving to not carry the burden of being a peacemaker in my own home. I was no longer asked to settle arguments between my parents and discipline my little sister when she disobeyed my grandmother.
I was able to wake up in the mornings and not worry about the errands I would have to run for my family or stress about cooking dinner for my siblings. My life and the course of my day are now solely in my own hands, and I am so thankful for it.
In the past three months, I was able to flourish into an entirely new version of myself.
I did not know at the time, that the second I went off to college I would never return to anything remotely close to the life I used to have. Because of family circumstances, I would soon return to a house I could no longer call home. My family would downsize to a smaller house and all of my belongings would now fill up my dorm room closet in Blacksburg. Back “home,” I would sleep in my little sister’s bed and scatter through a suitcase to find an outfit for the day. The place I once called my home, would turn into four walls that hold the people that I love.
I know that for many other students, these family circumstances are so common. Many of us are dropped off at college and the door back into childhood slams shut behind us as our parents walk out of the dorm for the first time. But that is the beauty in the entire experience of growing up to begin your own life. Once that door slams, everything you want to become is put into the palms of your hands.
Virginia Tech quickly became my home, not only because I was able to find comfort in the little shoebox I live in, but because I had no other choice but to make it home. I found an amazing support system of girls who happened to live in my hall, and the unknown places I hadn’t even visited became my favorite spots on campus. The mixture of the liberation and sense of belonging here have made this the best year of my life just from one semester. I cannot see my life going in any other direction.
I would call myself lucky to have the chance to grow up independent, as it prepared me to start my own life so suddenly. But that change is also so difficult to figure out, and I think I am still working on putting pieces of my life together to figure out what I truly want it to look like.
Ever since that door closed, I struggle with second-guessing my own judgment every day. I often wake up with irrational fears of things that could go wrong and the opportunities I might be missing out on. I still call my mom to ask for her reassurance on important decisions and her advice on how to go about situations that arise. But the overwhelming excitement that comes with being your own individual with your entire life ahead of you, outweighs all the uncertainty.
It is difficult to navigate the fusion of emotions that come with being left alone in a matter of seconds.
But if I have learned anything from the Taylor Swift song I blasted for months this summer, it is that I may be on my own, but I always have been, really. And as hard as it may seem now, everything will eventually fall into place. You just have to let yourself mess up a few times along the way.