Snow College means Emotional Purging

Snow College. Two words that will be forever engraved in my heart. Snow College has given me more than just a college degree. When I started my first semester my first thought wasn't how well I wanted to do in all my classes or even how many friends I would make. My first thought was I don't have to pretend to be someone that I'm not anymore. I lived as this perfect mold for what my friends wanted me to be for so many years. My only thought at the time was this must be what I have to do if I want to have friends. I've always been the socially awkward girl that doesn't know how to interact with other people. I was scared that after living in this mold for over four years that those people that I called my friends would reject me if I became anything but the person that they wanted me to be so I continued to live that mold for another year, that is until graduation rolled around. In the months before high school graduation I started to wear thin and I became tired of living a life that I didn't like. I knew that I needed to go my own way after graduation and I took the cowardly way out by using graduation as an excuse for why I was saying good bye. I was excited to begin a new life as the person that I wanted to be. It finally came time to move into my apartment and I was excited and scared and every emotion in between. I was excited about moving to a place where no one knew me, there were a few people that I knew in high school but we only knew of each other. At first I was scared to break out of that mold so for the first few months I remained antisocial and spent most of my time locked in my room avoiding everyone because I didn't know how to act around them. I started hanging out with my roommates and other people who lived in the dorm. I soon found that maybe it wasn't so hard to break out of the mold that I had lived in for so long. I started doing things that I was never comfortable with in high school, this included dance parties with my friends, hanging out for more than two hours at a time. As uncomfortable as I was during all of these activities I forced myself to participate in hopes of soon becoming the type of person that was comfortable participating in these activities. As second semester rolled around I soon found myself become more and more comfortable in my new life and being around my new friends. I finally found a group of people that I felt comfortable with, that I felt like I could be myself around and it felt wonderful. I soon found myself breaking the rules, staying in a boys room past curfew, lying to my roommates about where I've been, taking 1:30 am road trips to places that I've never been, ending up at a motel at 3 am, going on coed camping trips, and having my friends be completely open and honest nothing being left unsaid no matter how embarrassed someone might come. I finally had the friends that I had always dreamed about. At times I wish that the boys hadn't been as open as they were but I learned to be more comfortable around boys, how to talk to them (which is something that most people learn early on but I never really got the chance), and most of all I learned not the let the little things embarrass me. I didn't want that semester to end, even with all the drama that we had gone through we had gone through it together and we all survived and made each other stronger. When I first learned that there would only be three of us coming back for the next school year I was devastated. I was finally happy and I didn't want anything to change. Things did change but I wasn't expecting that they would change as much as they did. The three of us that did come back to Snow hardly ever see each other and we hang out maybe once a month, it's a hard pill to swallow when things were so good only a few months before. My relationship with my friends that I had left at home that weren't able to come changed drastically we never spoke, never texted, and when we did communicate with each other it wasn't like before it was now different. There is no other way to describe it beside just different. I didn't know if I could continue on with trying to maintain it if it was that hard to just get them to simply talk to me. I contemplated saying good bye for several weeks and I finally decided to try one last time to see if we still had that strong best friend connection that we had once had. We got talking again and both poured everything out on the table and soon things were starting to get back to normal, well as normal as you can being two hours apart. While in high school I lived the Molly Mormon mold that my friends wanted me to be, that was the mold that I had lived my entire life. Most people figure out who they are and what they want while in high school I wasn't so lucky. My friends showed me a new way of life, the fun side of life. I started doing things that I told myself I would never do such as watch R rated movies, be in a car going over 100 miles an hour without wearing a seat belt with someone in the trunk, not going to church, stay in a boy's bedroom past curfew, or even break the rules all together. I'm not say that my new friends are bad people because they aren't they just have a different view point on life than I was used too. Peer pressure started me on a path that I never thought I would go down but I don't regret any of it. I once heard that when you hang around a certain group of friends for an extended period of time you start to take on some of their characteristics. I've been thinking these past few weeks and I've found this to be very true. My friends hardly ever went to church and I've stopped going to church, they watched R rated movies on a regular basis and now I do, they weren't afraid to break the rules and now I'm not either. I've realized that that's not the life that I want to be leading I don't want to be the girl that's watching the R rated movies I don't want to be the girl that stops everything that I was raised to believe because that's what my friends do and believe. Everything that I knew in high school was a lie and now I am in the stage of redefining myself and finding who I really am. I lived the life that my friends did for a year and now I'm finding it hard to break some of those habits. I want to be the best person that I can be. I'm trying to find out who the real me is and right now I don't know who the real me is. I love all of the friends that I made at Snow College with all my heart and I will never forget them but now it's time for me to say good bye and move on with my life. I need to start living my life for me and not for anyone else. I'm so grateful for everyone that I've meet in my life because they have all changed and effected my life and I have grown so much from meeting them. Snow College is one of the best decisions that I have ever made and I will never regret it. Graduation day is going to be hard, saying good bye to a life that I have lived for the last two years but I know with all my heart that I am making the right decision for me. This year has been emotional and physically hard but I know that it has only made me a better person. I'm going to hold my head high and live my life to the fullest and do everything for me. My best days really are ahead of me.