Fear of leaving your family for college is inevitable, but is it worth it?
Leaving everything behind to start a new life is terrifying. Just the thought of saying goodbye to my favorite people and moving to a completely unfamiliar place where I’ll have to manage everything on my own for the first time stirs up a sense of panic in my stomach, making me doubt everything.
I’m scared of leaving my family, I love them so much that imagining my life without them nearby makes me feel disoriented. I’m so used to having dinners with all of them once a week, seeing my grandparents every day, and so on that it will be hard changing all these routines.
Obviously, I know it’s normal; every person with a good relationship with his family has to face up to this problem and in the end, someone before others, manages to do it.
It’s the flow of life…
…and an important milestone in each one’s growing path; it marks the very end of our childhood and the beginning of our adult life.
I’ve always thought that as soon as I could I would have moved away: from my birthplace, from this environment, from my life here. I strongly believe in destiny and I have always been sure that it has bigger plans for my future; I don’t really know how to explain it because it has been felt since my early youth–since I traveled to other places and saw the world.
But now, as I approach the moment of making that decision about my future, I’m not aware of what I have to do exactly. Deep down, I know it’s the best choice for my personal growth, but there’s a part of me that makes taking it so difficult. I would rather stay here, cuddled in the comfort of my grandmother’s arms, in my safe place where everything is familiar.
Despite all my confusion…
…I need to go away and have new experiences. I love traveling and one of my biggest dreams is to live abroad fully on my own with my own forces; maybe just for a period, not for my entire life. Sincerely, I don’t have a precise answer on what I’ll do, but it’s ok–I prefer not to arrange everything in detail so I’ll have the serenity to choose what I prefer based on the moment, on the opportunities and on the person I’ll become.
At the same time, I feel trapped where I am now. I know this place isn’t where I belong because I feel constrained, and my creativity needs a wider space to boom. Since childhood, I’ve had a sort of perception about my future and I’ve always believed that staying in my small reality wouldn’t support that process.
Now, at seventeen, I still feel the same, but growing up has given me a more mature perspective on things:
- I’m sure that if I want to make my dream a reality, I need to move away.
- I also know I’ll do it more easily thanks to the support of my family and thanks to the realization that I’m free to return whenever I want. This town will always be my home, and I’ll carry my favorite people with me wherever I go.
Especially if these connections are real, my choice won’t weaken them.
This idea applies not only to family but especially to friends. With family, there’s a natural bond of blood, but friends don’t have that certainty. They’re not our biological family but they’re the family we choose. Day after day, we choose them because we want them in our lives, so if the bond is strong and rooted in true love, it won’t change. It took me time to understand this, and although I’m still nervous about what might change in these relationships, I live everything with more calmness.
I also think…
that going to college is not only a decision to improve our curriculum with a school degree but it’s a life experience. Some graduated people told me that during uni years they have not only learnt the school basis of their course but also much more useful skills, such as cohabitation, open mind and a different way of thinking.
So if one has the chance to go, I believe it to be a waste of a life’s chance to ruin everything just because of fear!
Sometimes we need risks to be able to see what there is on the other side, it could be more suitable than our current reality.
Change may scare us a lot, but certainly not as much as staying stuck in the same point for all our lives.
