The freshman

One of the many great things about therapy is that when you've had a lot of it, as I have, eventually, in certain situations, you learn enough to act as your own therapist.  
I had one of those moment last night, when I had a small epiphany about how much my very challenging freshman year of college shifted my perceptions of myself and undermined my confidence. Maybe the fact that it took me nearly 20 years to reach this realization is proof that I should go back to paying a therapist. Or maybe I shouldn't judge myself and accept that this knowledge came to me when it was meant to and better late than never. 
I was thinking about my college experience because my 15-year-old nephew is starting to give some thought to his future plans, and I was thinking about what guidance to give him. When I was his age and in his shoes of starting to think about college, I was determined to get as far away from my hometown as possible. The primary goal was Florida, because that's how I was going to enact my grand plan of meeting, falling in love with, and marrying Backstreet Boy Nick Carter, who lived in Florida.  But really, anywhere far, far away would do. Getting out of Hazleton had been my dream since I was 12 years old, and now I was finally getting my chance to do it. 
My parents supported me, but there were limits, including the mandate that I pick a college within 100 miles of my hometown. They were generously willing to pay for my bachelor's degree, and  somehow in my fever-dream teenage brain, I had the common sense to realize that was a good fucking deal, so I agreed and ended up at a mid-sized state college about 90 minutes from my hometown.
And here's the kick in the tits - my freshman year was a disaster. I was a homesick, anxious, insecure train wreck. The girl who had been talking shit about traveling the world couldn't hack being 50 miles from her home. 
It was, needless to say, humbling. But I don't think I ever fully realized until last night how humbling. If I can pinpoint a moment when I felt like I lost the badass, can-do attitude I had as a child and adolescent, it probably has some roots in that experience.  A lot of realities smacked me in the face that year - I didn't have the tools to adapt to huge life changes, real life would often deviate from my fantasies, dreaming big was just setting myself up for a fall, I wasn't as brave or bold as I thought I was. A facet of my inner critic was born in that experience, the part that says, "Remember how excited you were to go to college, and then you cried like a little bitch and almost quit? Yeah, maybe calm down those ambitions."
Now, of course, I do also have to call out the fact that I did not quit. I stuck it out through freshman year, got some therapy (yay!), went on some anti-anxiety medication, and had a great overall sophomore-through-senior year experience.  I've always been proud of how I got up and kept fighting, but I don't know if I've ever really acknowledged until now what was lost when I got knocked down in the first place. It's an interesting thing to consider, how a humbling experience can shake your confidence, and how things would have turned out if that experience would have been different for me.