I always thought I’d be going to the East Coast for my undergraduate degree. However, through the entire hustle and bustle of college applications, interviews, and getting results in the mail, I ended up committing to staying in California for four more years.

The choice I made to stay churned out many initial reactions in me—the most significant being the disappointment I felt in myself. I knew I was going to a school of prestige, a school with a name and the academics to back it, but what did it all boil down to? I was a city girl at heart, who never truly enjoyed the sun-bleached suburbs that I felt trapped in, who never felt comfortable on the West Coast and always longed for the soaring skyscrapers, defined seasons, and glittering city life of the East. I longed to follow the paths of dearly loved upperclassmen who had embarked on journeys to New York universities. But most of all, I had originally seen university as a way to leave my old identity behind—to cut ties with the errors and mistakes I had made and to start fresh in a world where no one knew my name.

But when the college decision letters came in, when the tuition numbers came in, when I realized that going to New York for college would be the most impractical, impossible, absurd thing to do—all I could do was to numbly accept my fate and swallow the bitter regret in my throat.

However, as time passed, I slowly began to accept the outcome that I had been presented with, and began seeing the more positive elements to my choice as well. It delighted my mother to no extent upon realizing that I’d be around 3,000 miles closer to her, and that I’d also be in an area remotely close to a Korean market. I wouldn’t have to spend several hundred dollars on winter jackets, nor would I have to start fretting about the elevated costs that New York City would bring. As much as I wanted to start anew, I quickly discovered that I never had the true heart or intention to leave my AHS family behind—my heart would have broken into pieces if I had accepted the offer to leave for New York. And it truly sealed the deal when I met my future roommate on my university’s Facebook page; when we hit it off like friends who have known each other for more than fifteen years, I knew that I was going to the right place.

Thus, even though I was never able to fulfill my dream of renting an apartment in the middle of a bustling city and fitting the image of the polished corporate-worthy law student I always dreamed of being, I realized that it was ultimately a shallow dream compared to the glowing reality I would be able to fulfill in the Californian university I have committed to.

Expectations almost always differ from reality, whether it’s for better or worse. But in the end, things will turn out fine. So if I could go back to my past self and put a hand on her shoulder, I’d tell her to slow down—to not focus so much on getting out of California, to enjoy the little moments she had at the time. To relax, to stop worrying so much about details and to start seeing the big picture. To realize that good things take time and rarely follow a rigidly planned course. That she’s okay, and she’ll get to where she wants to be eventually.

And so, to all the underclassmen, the rising seniors, the current seniors, the ones who are just starting to worry about life beyond high school (and the ones who already have been worrying for a while), I want to tell you that life rarely follows your plans for it. Even if you’re in a place you would rather not be right now, it can always get better—don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Better days, better outcomes; they’re always coming.