I graduated from the University of Virginia (UVA) in May 2022 with my Bachelor of Arts degree. In the two years since my graduation, I haven’t sat down to metabolize and transmute my plethora of experiences, shifting identities, micro- and macro-traumas, and biggest accomplishments as a student.

When I’m older, I don’t want to forget every part that went into my most important life experiences. College was among these for me; there hasn’t been another four-year period where more change has occurred. I’m trying to get all the most important and insignificant bits on paper as a mark of what I’ve endured and the growth I’ve experienced. As such, what follows is a summary of my first year at UVA.

I moved into my dorm on a boiling August day in 2018. I lived in the International Residential College (IRC), a vibrant dorm community primarily housing international students. I applied to live there in hopes that I would encounter other German-speaking students with whom I could relate (funny enough, there were no other Germans there. Just an assortment of unfriendly expats with money).

The dorm was so far from all the other first-year housing, a fact I took immediate note of. The first month there was painfully awkward. There were so many organizations to join that I was overwhelmed and joined not a single one of them. Craving the social opportunities only offered in the far-away villages of other students my age, I started going to the gym alone. A lot.

Writing about this part is going to be uncomfortable for me. I have a lot of shame and regret toward the way I initially coped with the stress of college, the missteps along the way and the unnecessary suffering I brought upon myself. To this day, I still feel pangs in my chest when I think of this period.

I have OCD—a lifelong mental health condition—which flares during periods of change. Going to college was perhaps the biggest change I had ever experienced. What’s more, I broke up with my awful therapist from high school right before moving to Charlottesville, trusting that I didn’t need any external support amid change. The initial stress of my full course load was overwhelming but still manageable. I did exceptionally well on my assignments, spending countless hours and weekends in the library. I didn’t quite lean into the “fun” parts of college immediately.

Before I get into the worst parts, I will quickly say that I was lucky enough to meet my angel of a best friend at a slam poetry event during my first week at school. Things weren’t all that terrible in my life. So, when I wasn’t at the library or in class, I was either going to, at, or leaving the gym. The incredibly cursed Aquatics and Fitness Center (AFC). I didn’t drink much either, so parties were few and far between.

I picked up basketball almost immediately, being 6ft 2', a lifelong athlete, and searching for a social athletic group. I was awful when I began and wanted to practice to be able to play pickup with the guys there. So, I practiced every day, and it quickly entered compulsive territory.

I was in over my head for no reason. I spent maybe three hours each day in the gym, working out and then shooting hoops. I stopped eating regularly (great). I had the reverse Freshman 15, but made it 25—I rapidly lost weight and was in the "best" physical shape of my life. What I couldn’t admit to myself at that time was how sad, socially deprived, and lonely I was, and how desperately I wanted to be a part of an organization and not a free agent. My anxiety was winning at that time, and I spiraled for a few months. I even got a part-time job I didn’t need at an uppity juicery, whose client base I despised, disrespectfully.

The first semester passed, and it was essentially me being trapped in the same dysfunctional routine. Still no therapy, still lonely, still not going out for things I wanted. I was essentially doing the exact opposite of what I wanted to do. When I returned from winter break, I didn’t know what my second semester had in store for me (and, girl… it had plans for me).

I have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a genetic condition that affects the collagen in your body. As a result, I’m extremely prone to joint and ligament injuries. I had hip surgery at the end of high school that ended my lacrosse career, but no idea at the time that it was part of a larger issue beyond my control. My micro-tears and insignificant injuries from excessive exercise started piling up fast at the start of the second semester. I was in a lot of pain daily which was getting significantly harder to ignore. Then, one day, I was doing a weighted hip exercise (which I had no business attempting). I felt a pop, and I fell over.

I had torn completely through the labrum in my left hip, the ring of soft tissue protecting the ball-and-socket joint of the hip. You wouldn’t think the labrum matters, but I promise it certainly does! Immediately, I couldn’t walk. I was in a nauseating amount of pain. I was too injured to feel embarrassed at that point. I must have limped home or taken an Uber, I can’t remember that detail.

I called my mom who lived an hour away, and she took me to the hospital in Richmond. I was inconsolable and in the most pain of my life. I was so angry at myself and my body, and that my routine (however dysfunctional) was disrupted. I needed immediate surgery and was lucky to be able to get it. In February, I had to leave the IRC to move to another more centrally located first-year dorm, Bonnycastle, as I could no longer get up the stairs to my room. I was placed in Bonnycastle with an incredible roommate who helped redefine my first year. She’s the first person to formally introduce me to the art of crochet, too.

I was on crutches for months after surgery and got to bring my car to school, an invaluable asset to me and my friends. In all honesty, my injury and subsequent surgery needed to happen. My mind couldn’t escape the prison it had trapped me in, so my body tapped out. And I was finally forced to listen. I found a therapist who ended up changing my life that winter, someone with whom I still work six years later. I realized I could no longer leave my OCD and its unchecked symptoms to chance, and I had to take accountability for my actions. I needed to get better for me.

Life became exponentially better in my new community, as I couldn’t do my normal destructive routine. I had to rediscover other things that I loved. As my healing journey started, I began to have more plans, go to parties, make friends, and put myself out there. Ironically, I’m not sure that I’ve ever been as liberated as I was on crutches during that time. The year was turning upward, and I felt weirdly grateful for what I had endured. I didn’t enjoy the pain and suffering, but it put me where I was. And I was glad to be there on the other side. The end of the year was a bit like a movie. And I deserved a happy ending.

We were the 2019 NCAA Men’s Basketball Champions. It was madness, and I’ll never forget all those small moments that led to our great big victory. With each passing game and successive win, we all rallied on the Corner, flooding the streets and blocking off traffic. The night we won the whole thing, though, I joyfully ran into the crowd on my crutches. I even used them to cheer, waving them wildly above my head. It was one of those rare, perfect moments, the culmination of good luck and timing. I don't know if I'll experience that sort of event again, so I soaked it up.

We partied well into the night; all our classes were canceled the next day.

And that was the note I left first year on: A note of delight and pride. Around that time, I was finally able to walk without my crutches and rounding the corner on my last physical therapy session. I no longer had to live in a dorm, and life was better than I thought was possible.

However, as soon as school ended and the surgical scars on my left hip healed, I knew that I needed to get a revision surgery on my right hip. I had another previous surgery on that same hip in 2017 for a severe injury—as in, my orthopedic surgeon dubbed the state of my labrum a “horror show”— that still caused complications. Though unexcited at the prospect of enduring more medical procedures, I knew it would help with my everyday pain exacerbated by my recent recovery.This surgery was far less intensive with a shorter recovery time, and I knew I needed to take advantage of my time off during summer break. Luckily, everything panned out relatively well, and I was able to recover by September of the upcoming school year—one semester and two hip surgeries down.

I still look back on those harder parts of my first year with a weird mix of compassion and shame. But I did the best I could at the time with what I knew. I can't erase it or hide it. Did any part of my difficult experiences need to happen? The injury, probably not (in terms of severity). The character development, absolutely. And to be fair, being injured was neither completely my fault nor my intention. Ehlers-Danlos is a complicated disorder, one I’ll touch on in my second-year recap.

First year broke me and I built myself back up from scratch. In the process, I learned a lot about the type of person I was and wanted to become. I wouldn’t change the places that my struggles brought me to during that time. I couldn’t see it then, but I was being skillfully positioned exactly where I was meant to be.