An Unofficial College Girl’s Guide to Adaptation
By Abigail Zajac, 20, MO
It’s not easy to look up from a year of college with neon blue hair, a different major, and crying because you and all of your new best friends/ life partners/ roommates are moving out of your smelly dorm room, unsure of the next time your paths will cross. It’s simple in theory, but difficult in practice: you adapt.
Change is inevitable. It steamrolls over every individual at points in their life. It leaves some crying on the shower floor for weeks, some popping champagne, and some stress-cleaning their entire space three times over.
The key to low-stress adaptation is reframing the change. Yes, you need to mourn the loss of your smelly dorm room, but after you have felt those feelings, some gratitude is in order.
The best adapters are all about balance. They are sad for the things they will no longer have, the routine they must say goodbye to, but they are grateful for the time spent in those patterns, and even more appreciative of the new ones they get to form.
Remember, just because it’s over doesn’t mean it’s gone. Sure, you and your bestie might not be able to binge-watch the new season of Heartstopper from twin-XL beds, but you can hop on a Chrome extension and simultaneously stream from separate states, fangirling via chatbox.
Adaptation isn’t about giving up what you have; it’s about finding new patterns to hold onto. Think of it this way: Rome didn’t fall, it adapted. Sure, it was invaded by Visigoths on super-cool canoes and sure, this meant a whole new language was spoken and a new religion took over, but there were still parts of the empire that spoke Latin and called themselves Romans. The Roman Empire became the Byzantine Empire, which was even better because the new leadership set laws that prevented trafficking of young girls.
Change comes for even the greatest of empires and it is up to their leaders to decide whether they will adapt or crumble. I urge you to adapt because you never know what is on the other side of change until you’re there.
Sure, I may have ended my first year teary-eyed, and blue stained, but I didn’t stay that way. In fact, I rang in the new year with blessedly brown hair, eating grapes under a table with the friends I thought I would never see again.
Just another Carrie Bradshaw style column reflection on my college experience. @abigailzajac
