By Jessica Salsman

Ever since I was little, I’ve had a strong personality. My dad had an adventurous childhood and wanted the same for me. He wanted me to make stories, have lots of friends and have fun being who I am. Thanks to my dad’s philosophy, my teenage years were extremely enjoyable and I didn’t think twice about who I was. And then college came around and everything changed.

This past year has been the hardest of my life. Like many around me, I’ve been struggling to find who I am. It’s always been seen as cool to be “chill.” You hear people say, “I like her, she’s chill.” Then on the flipside, you hear people say, “Oh her? She’s too wild …”

Why does being wild have such a negative connotation to it? I am that wild girl; I have never been a calm person.  I have always been loud.

However, I got a little carried away this last year and let my wild side take over. Being a passionate person, I’ve always loved and fought hard. I broke my pinky punching a close guy friend in the face. I loved to attend every social gathering and had to be the loudest one in the room.

After long nights, I would wake up in the morning wondering what I did to make my friends not talk to me because I couldn’t remember. Let’s just say, I stopped respecting myself and others did the same. I let people look at me poorly because I was different, and I took it like I deserved it. I looked at myself in such an unfavorable way that other people thought they could too.

I let myself think that every choice I made was a mistake. I let all of my wild nights haunt me so badly that I just sat at home alone overtaken by guilt. It got to the point where I decided that I didn’t want to be that person anymore. I was affecting the people around me and I had to change. From then on out, I tried the whole “chill” girl act but I found myself slipping up time and time again. I was never going to be that sweet, quiet girl.

After the longest battle, I have started to realize that I don’t want to be anything other than the wild girl that I am. I cannot change myself. I spent so much time trying to be something else that I completely lost who I was and felt so alone because I couldn’t even look to myself for guidance.

Maybe I was too wild for one year of my life, but that doesn’t mean that I have to stop being wild altogether. I realized that this last year wasn’t full of mistakes that couldn’t be fixed. It was full of challenges that I had to experience in order to find myself. I have no regrets.

Everyone has fun in a different way; it just happens that my way of enjoying myself seemed to be “the wrong way” in the eyes of others. Yes, my overbearing social personality can be obnoxious, and I have made some mistakes, but everything I have done has helped me grow. I decided that I could sit there and sulk about the negative things people have said about me, or I could embrace myself for who I am. I could get people to see that if I like who I am, then they shouldn’t be allowed to rain on my parade.

I’ve discovered that if I love myself, the people around me will love me too. And if you don’t like me because you don’t understand me, then that’s A-OK. The people who have watched me develop through this struggle know who I am and who I have always been.

Even if you’re not wild and you’re just having a hard time accepting yourself, try looking at yourself from a different angle. Ask your friends what they love about you. Find the things that you love about yourself.

Don’t let anyone’s opinions stop you from doing what you want to do. Find what you like to do and ask yourself if you’re having fun.

The college environment is a crazy one, and you need to know your limits and be comfortable with the repercussions of the choices you make. It won’t always come so easily and you will make mistakes, but grow from them. Don’t hide behind them and let them dictate you.

If you think the choices you make are affecting the people around you, step back and pinpoint what the problem is exactly. Everyone has room to improve and if you work on the little things, you’ll find that you’ll love the person you’re becoming. Do not try to change yourself completely because it’s impossible. Everyone is striving to find themselves in college, and for some people it’s harder than it is for others to reach that level of self-acceptance.

There is nothing wrong with being you. For myself, I’ve realized that I have a personality that can sometimes be intimidating and it’s not always something that people greet with open arms, but I embrace it every day! Finding yourself is one of the hardest challenges you’ll endure at this age. Face it head on and enjoy every minute of it. Do not regret anything. Just keep learning and remember to love yourself first.

Jessica Salsman studies political science and english linguistics. She can be reached at dcoffey@unr.edu.