**Warning:  This rant was written maybe months ago on a gloomy day and is not related to my present state of mind. So I request all overprotective twins and worried family members and yak ladies to NOT WORRY I'M FINE AND HAPPY.  Just felt like this needed to be out here in case someone ever needs it ok bye**

College is exhausting.

Magical three words, innit? Evoking a lot of emotions and memories? Nodding your head vigorously in agreement? It's a perpetual truth, but a beautiful exaggeration to everyone who's moved on to more exhausting things in life like taxes and children. But that doesn't degrade it's credibility.

I will forever stand by my statement. College is exhausting.

Apart from the twenty thousand assignments and asshole professors and quizzes and never-ending exams and fests and events and clubs and chapters― as if that's not enough 🌚🔫― university life is exhausting to your mental health.

Now I don't mean it's completely, point blank bad for you, oh never. Somebody once told me growth is a process of breaking down and building up all over again, and not just a smooth agent up the ladder of maturity. And at this point in your life, where everything's confusing and you don't know what to do with yourself, the breaking down part gets easier, the building up part gets tougher and finding strength each day to be the best version of yourself is...hard.

I didn't use the word difficult because it's not difficult, and I didn't say impossible because it sure as hell isn't impossible. It's just hard. Simple as that.

As a human being, a social animal, other humans kinda play an important role in your life, and while you can't always control how big of a role a certain person plays, you can always be cautious and learn to pick yourself up if you ever fall. Because with people you will fall. You're going to get attached, be happy, have fun, then trip somewhere along the way, get hurt, bleed, lag behind, find a crack in your rose tinted glasses and cry. But like they say, time and tide and ice cream trucks wait for none so if you don't want to get stuck in a never ending rut of tears and self pity, get up and hustle. Putting it all behind you is difficult, I know. It seems nearly impossible, but you just have to keep trying and trying until time heals the wounds and your heart embraces the scars that will remain.

Now if you chose to wear the scars with pride and take wisdom from the experience, then you're set. Otherwise, you'll just have ugly scar tissue that's kinda painful and kinda unpleasant to took at and gives you bad memories that make you spend precious moments of your life dawdling in 'what if's and 'would have been's.

Not a very productive way to live. Time's a tickin'.

This is where University life kinda messes with your head by being all paradoxical. You get to meet so many new people, out of which you receive warm friendships from some and cold rejections from others, you form bonds which in that moment you'd think will last a lifetime, and the same bonds either shatter in a second or fray away with time as days flow by. You'll get backstabbed and rescued and protected and murdered in cold blood, maybe all in the same day and honestly, dealing with all that is plain exhausting.  Humans are exhausting. Friendships are exhausting. You can't please everyone, but everyone expects you to please them. Whether you're a social butterfly or a recluse, you'll be screwed over.

Listen, I came to college and I suddenly know a shit load of people. Like I took the opportunity to come out of my stupid shell and now I know so many people I'm surprised at myself, and I bet you guys who know me will be too when you hear that my roommates and friends complain that I'm one of those social arthropods with pretty wings and antennae. I mean, can you believe it?! I sure as hell can't!

But it is what it is! And maintaining a good relationship with everyone is nearly impossible, I don't have that kind of time or mental stamina. The downside to this is that your totally human, accidental mistakes or flaws in your behavior is going to make a lot of people talk about you. When I was a little ball of flesh with no presence in my old classrooms, nobody knew me but those very few who did liked me and I liked them and I could invest in strengthening those bonds. But now, it's different, it's the exact opposite. And it's exhausting.

I know I know, I've said that like twenty times already but it just IS.

What I've learnt in around six months of living with 35k others like me is that people come and go. Things will always change and nothing will ever be constant as long as time keeps moving. No matter how you wish the clock would pause, it never does, and while that sucks cactus, the smart thing to do is take your time, swallow reality, but always get up and keep moving in the end. 

You're not perfect, no one ever is. As a perfectionist, as someone who gets too attached too soon and a former people pleaser, I'll firmly say this: you're going to make mistakes, and it's inevitable, and you're going to have to deal with the fact that not everyone loves you. You cannot please everyone, and you don't owe it to anybody either. People are going to lie to your face, make you feel amazing, then just toss you aside. It happens, it all happens.  And oh god does it suck.

But the only answer is, you just have to take your own time to rejuvenate and when you're ready, walk ahead. Keep moving. Keep rolling so much the moss wouldn't even dream of gathering on you. And whenever you think that it's hard or you can't, just remember that everybody goes through it. Every. Last. Person.

That's the beauty of it. This whole journey of growth and development and mental strengthening?

Yeah, we're all in this together.

*High School Musical theme plays in the background*

*moonwalks out of the orange community for the next while*

Ciao!