Change is part of the unpredictability of life. It is something that everyone must adapt to, yet many of us, including myself, struggle with change on a daily basis. We, as humans, are prone to want to control everything that happens in our lives. Obsessing over details, we plan ahead, only for life to throw something at us that we weren’t prepared for. Even when we do expect these changes, they can still be hard to come to terms with. I think this is partly to do with the fact that our society has evolved to strive for security and comfortable lives. As a result, we become so used to our surroundings and day-to-day routines that when something disrupts that, we become completely derailed. After having undergone much evolution in my life the last couple of years, I have come to realize that despite my adventurous nature, my ability to quickly adapt to big life changes is less than satisfactory.

Almost two years ago now, I packed up my life in California and moved across the country for graduate school. I went from having a view of the ocean, to being surrounded by a sea of cornfields. The first month or so was actually pretty great, as everything was new and fresh and it felt no different than being at a summer camp. However, as the dust settled and summer turned to fall, it really started to sink in that I had moved. All of a sudden I was stressing about making friends and fitting in. I was worried I was never going to feel the same sense of community that I had in undergrad. But, despite my worries, I set off to try to meet people. This proved to be a challenge as even though I’m not much of a drinker, I found myself going out to bars a lot (as that’s what everyone does in a college town in the middle of nowhere) in an attempt to fit in. Me being the introvert that I am, trying to have small talk with someone at a bar that’s so loud you can’t even hear your own thoughts was near impossible. I couldn’t keep that up for very long without going insane. So eventually I stopped going out altogether. As a result, I felt alienated. How was I supposed to be social when going out was the only social thing that people did?

This conundrum, combined with the added stress of grad school, led me to a very depressed and homesick state of mind. I found myself constantly stuck in the past, realizing that even though my body was here, my heart and soul were back in California. As time went on, I said enough is enough. I was tired of waiting around for things to get better. So I set out to do some soul-searching and finally attempt to find my place here. I took initiative and started inviting people over for board game nights, finding common ground over games of Scrawl and Catan. Last summer, I took up climbing, and now I regularly climb with a group of people that are now some of my closest friends. I also discovered an app called Meetup, where people can form social groups based on common interest. I joined a running group last year, and I now run pretty regularly with them and we have even done some 10K races together.

Though I still sometimes struggle with my sense of belonging here, things are much better than they were. Now, I am much more able to focus on the positive aspects of this life change rather than the negative. I have taken up more hobbies, have had the opportunity to travel through my research, and have met some great people along the way. I also became much closer to Sophia through our shared struggles of moving away from California and helping each other navigate it all. And now we have this awesome blog! There is so much to be grateful for. I hope if you are going through a big change in your life, that you remember to be patient, trust the process, and then everything will work out the way it should.

Embracing change led to a domino effect of experiences and beautiful moments during the past couple of years, from witnessing the change of seasons, to exploring new climbing gyms, to Solaria Chip reuniting in Richmond, VA!