As I finish my freshman year of college, I am met with meditations of bountiful joy, adventure, love, confusion, loneliness, and many lessons learned. My own exodus into adulthood was arguably the best thing to ever happen to me. However, like any life experience, it has been a ceaseless journey of feeling lost and then found — a ceaseless loss of myself in order to find myself. The following post is intended to validate the experience of anyone struggling to find their footing. You are seen, and you are most definitely not alone.

The first semester of college proved to be a joyous welcome out of childhood and into adult life. However, this second semester came loaded with a pinch of reality. Despite a stable financial situation, good grades, and people in my life who love and support me, the transition out of adolescence has been hard. It satisfies to say that any major life change comes with its own unique challenges, but the leap into adulthood has a noticeable flavor.

Who do I want to become? What do I want to bring to the world around me? Where do I go when I can’t call Mom and Dad to do it for me? What the hell is a W-2?

It’s no wonder that we live in a world where the fair share of Gen Z struggles with their mental health. Our sensitive years of identity formation took place within the fence of a global pandemic and social isolation. Social media has become an eager substitute for interpersonal relationship. Many of us have not yet corrected this error.

Now, we enter into the developmental years of searching for and deepening satisfying, close relationships. Are we to assume that we have the skills that it takes to fulfill this stage of life? No, not yet at least. And finding where we lack the skills may be our saving grace.

Emergence into young adulthood is a type of psychological birth. Childhood is the womb that sets the foundation for who one is. Metaphorically speaking, the umbilical cord is then cut, and we are sent out into a world of possibility. I think it is rational to assume that the mind, at this stage of life, may view the aforementioned possibility as a grand uncertainty.

“The world is your oyster,” the old adage says, and then one day you realize that the world is your oyster and no one is going to give you the pearl that you desire. No matter the circumstances, uncertainty is a human universal, and we locked eyes with it the moment we journeyed out of the womb of childhood.

Uncertainty. When I hear that word, I’m tempted to run and hide. This four syllable word contains the antidote for my desire to seek control over a world that extends far beyond my limited self. Feelings of powerlessness and existential angst are tempting traps to fall into, but what instead of falling we decided to lean into that which terrifies us.

As in the current season of my own life, I have hardly a clue for what is going to happen next for me. I do know that right now is the time to search my own soul, questioning who I want to be in the world. It may be time to embrace hardship and learn how to stumble or how to pick myself up when I need to. Maybe, I’ll need to learn when to sit on my ass and sulk for awhile.

I am far from having the answers, but what life has been teaching me is this: don’t let the fear of losing who you used to be hold you back from being the person you need to become; love all past versions of yourself and allow them to whisper words of wisdom when you need it. Embrace life’s challenges, but ask for help when you need it. After all, you are only human.