While college can be frightening for some people, it may be a dream come true to others.  Saying goodbye to the people you’ve known for four years, or maybe even your entire life, would give any typical person an uneasy feeling. Saying goodbye to your parents is just another nervous feeling stirring butterflies around your anxious stomach.

​I had a different situation going into college unlike a lot of my friends. I grew up in Thomaston, Connecticut, one of the smallest towns. Trust me: I went to school with the same kids throughout all my life. It started in elementary and I walked the stage with them, all sixty-three. Shocker. Yes, sixty-three students made up my graduating class.

​Eighth grade is when we lost most of our students to technical schools because Thomaston didn’t offer much academically and athletically, and still doesn’t. We went from about 100 students down to 70 and then, well, you get the point. Thomaston was very small, but for the sports that we did offer, we did pretty well.

​My senior year, I committed to Central Connecticut State University. I was really excited because being in a small school gets old very quickly. I also had a lot of nervousness built up inside me.

My mother passed away when I was eight-years-old from stage four breast cancer. So, for almost my whole life, she wasn’t there to watch me grow, win a field hockey state championship, graduate high school and then, the big one, move into college.

​I had known my father wanted to move to Florida ever since I was little. I had gone back and forth about wanting to move with him when the time came. Those days where little Thomaston High School wasn’t treating me right I was all for it, but the times when I really had my best friends by my side I wasn’t convinced. Also, my father and I didn’t have the best relationship while I was growing up. Losing a parent either makes or breaks a relationship and we took the hard road, let’s say.

​My father started to get the house built in Florida around my junior year of high school. When he and my stepmom were going to move was up in the air. I finished my senior year of high school with them still in Connecticut and me still living at home.

​Then came my big day. All the nervousness about moving in arrived. Was I going to make friends? Was I going to get along with my roommate? Would I be upset my mother or my stepbrother and stepsister who live too far away couldn’t make move-in day? All those I learned were a big yes.

​I made amazing new friends. I got along great with my roommate. And yes, I was very upset I didn’t have more people with me on move-in day but I learned it is what it is.

​My friends from high school had more people with them on their journey, or they went to community college. Either way, I still felt a sense of difference between us.

​My parents ended up moving to Florida in December of my freshman year at Central, so now I only see them about every three months. I moved to Watertown with one of my friends so I could stay at Central.  As hard as it is, and trust me it is, being without your parents even if they’re only thirty minutes away or miles and miles away is not always going to be so difficult. My parents and I actually have a better relationship now that we are farther apart.

For those who are close with your parents and are devastated to be far, college will get easier, which is something I learned. It can always be stressful of course, but learning to be on your own is a scary but great challenge.

​I learned no matter how much you try and prepare for moving in and starting over, it might never go as planned. I still look back on high school, the good times and the bad. I remember coming home from practices and eating dinner with my family, now all that has changed. But with everything that has gone on in my life I’ve come to accept my new home away from home- CCSU.