Many people dread the first day of classes, while some people love to learn new things and yearn for the start of a brand new semester. Some people are like me, and they stress over the start of new beginnings.
Heading into this semester has been the same old, same old. As someone with near-crippling anxiety, you get used to being anxious. I get anxious when I’m at the grocery store and someone walks into the same aisle as me. When I drive, I get nervous. I get scared I’m going to accidentally run a red light when a light turns yellow, but that anxiety is manageable as I run into it every single day. Returning back to school stress is different.
I am no early bird. All my roommates I’ve ever had can confirm that I sleep in every spare moment I can. Back-to-school week is a different story. It is the type of anxiety that makes me wake up at the crack of dawn. It is the type of anxiety that makes my hands sweat as I grip my steering wheel, and as I turn into the commuter lot outside the old library.
As fast as this anxiety sets in, it leaves.
Once I sit down in the chair that will unofficially have my name on it for the rest of the semester, the anxiety that once was so blinding allows me to see again. I see who my peers will be for the next grueling four months, I see my friends again and I see why I chose to go to college.
Yet, the same cycle continues as I leave for my next class, and again at the next. This is a common phenomenon not only for me, but other students. I remember back in early grade school, before I even knew what anxiety was, I was stressed and nervous about school. I hated being away from home and my mom.
I’d get so nervous, I’d make myself have a stomach ache and would call my mom and have her pick me up.
It was never because I didn’t like school, I’ve always found school fun, and I love being able to engage with the people around me. Even in high school when I knew everyone and was taking medication to manage my anxiety, I felt the same fear and nerves I do now.
Being nervous about returning to school isn’t a bad thing.
My high school swim coach once told me that if we weren’t nervous for a race, we were doing something wrong. If we weren’t worried or nervous about a race, that meant it didn’t mean enough to us, or we didn’t care how we’d place, which could affect the whole team.
What Coach Doug told me all those years ago has stuck with me.
Instead of being upset that I’m anxious about returning to school, I’m glad my palms sweat a little. Yeah, it might be annoying to wake up before my alarm goes off, but I’m glad to know that returning to school means something important to me. It costs just about an arm and a leg to go here, so we might as well care about it a little while we’re here.
So if you’ve been anxious about this school year, take a note out of Doug’s book and let yourself be a little nervous. Just know it’s only because you care.
