Off to College compared to New Years Eve

I heard screaming from my neighbors house, a daughter, college-aged yelling at her mother and the mother responding, the fight escalating.  The topic seemed to be centered around the young woman saying she would not return to college, and the mother trying to convince her she must. I didn't think "Wow, can't they get their stuff together enough to not involve the whole neighborhood?" I genuinely felt absolute empathy for both of them. Of course the understanding on my end has an element of feeling you shouldn't throw stones if you live in a glass house, but this girl did go off to college a year ago and I honestly wonder if it isn't going very well. The mother, who I only know to say hello and chit chat, nothing more, is lovely and her children important to her.  The daughter I've watched from afar leave for high school daily, books in hand, then pack for college, return for holidays and finally return home for this first summer back. She looks unhappy, the daughter does.  

While college for many is a liberating experience from family and a new lease on making friends, redoing who you are and want to be in a brand new place, for some young people it can be paralyzingly difficult.  Going off to college there are so very many expectations of you, to say nothing of the price tag attached to the whole thing.  I think it is an amazing time of life, a "rights of passage," but also for this emerging adult there is an element of expectation for them to have an amazing wonderful time, and if they don't it can translate into a sense of failure. 

Going off to college and the build up before reminds me of New Years Eve, one is expected to have a crazy, fun, love filled, joyful, happy time on that night,  but what if you don't? Like going of to college the build up is intense for New Years Eve.  Just as one is asked over and over, "What college are you going to next year?" one might be asked "What are your plans for New Years Eve?" And if you don't have any, or do and the evening is a flop does that serve as a predictor for the entire year? Isn't your favorite New Years memory related to the fit of the environment, the people and where you were at in your own head at the time?

In returning to the yelling  from my neighbors, I wish I knew this young woman well enough that I could tell her, with all confidence, that college is certainly important, but if one place makes you unhappy that doesn't mean another won't be just fine, it is about finding the right fit.  The more open one is to learning and growing the easier it is to do just that and you just have to believe in  yourself and the possibilities out there. And finally, Mom loves you so much she just wants what will make your life fuller in the end.