Opinion | Changing my outlook on change

When change gets to be too much, ask yourself: “How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard?” Illustration by Yana Samoylova

Nothing ever stays the same. You get a blank slate every day. Or, if you share the pessimistic outlook I did growing up, the rug gets ripped out from under you just as you start to get your footing. 

Clearly, I don’t like change. Change is a disease that attacks people who crave routine.

For as long as I can remember, college sounded like the worst place to go. Not because I didn’t like to learn or lacked aspirations for a career that required higher education, but because I would have to venture into a scary, unfamiliar world. 

I had an outstanding senior year of high school: I loved writing for my high school newspaper (shoutout Redwood Bark), I loved my makeshift prom and graduation party and I loved my town. The COVID-19 pandemic was still in full swing, and I had become codependent on my support system of 17 years.

In a flash it was the end of orientation week. I sat outside Dodge with my mom, begging her to take me home with her. I will never forget the utter despair I felt. 

Greta Cifarelli, Copy Editor

But the following day, I decided to take all the advice I had accumulated from family at home to make friends. I threw myself into student organizations, I chatted with people in classes and I sat down with random people at the Caf. And then I blinked — and I will chalk my first semester up to fight or flight instincts — and I began associating this small Orange County town with positive memories: the beach, the Orange Public Library and day trips to LA. Slowly, I started referring to Orange as home, at first by accident, and now because it is.

Then, this summer, I experienced Orange in a way that shifted my framework. I lived here completely alone for the summer, and this place I knew so well did what things always seem to do no matter how much I try to stop them — change.

As my friends left to go home for the summer, I cursed myself for letting myself stay here. I let myself mope, as I always did, but instead of allowing fight or flight to enter, I stood still. I thought of Winnie the Pooh saying, “How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard?”

And how lucky am I? How lucky am I to have made such strong connections here that I didn’t want to say goodbye? How lucky was I to remain so close to my family and childhood friends? How lucky am I not yet to say goodbye to my college town, my roommates or sorority sisters, my co-editors at The Panther, or friends I made through clubs and other networks?

I won’t say I woke up one morning and realized I belonged. I woke up periodically throughout that first year thinking I had everything figured out and simultaneously having to convince myself not to book a one-way ticket into the San Francisco International Airport.

I eventually recognized that college is a major growth period in an adolescent’s life. It was the first time I didn’t resent change.

As I finished an incredible internship at the Newport Beach Film Festival last week, I can’t say my eyes didn’t well up with tears on my way to my last day, but I can say I asked myself again, “How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard?”

The answer is so abundantly lucky. It’s all about perspective. Change is inevitable, so you have to change the way you think about it.