With moving back into college is fast approaching, and this time I am moving in as a non-freshman. Here are some of the woes of moving back in the second time around:

1. Packing box after box after tote after backpack.

You literally shove everything in every form of container ever invented. Some of my stuff is currently being moved in a cooler. It's been one of those kind of weeks.

2. When you near your last box, you'll reach a state of panic.

Will it all even fit? Where do I put these odds and ends? Why do I own so much stuff?

3. You start packing everything into your vehicle and it doesn't seem real that everything fits.

Like how does this little sedan fit ALL of that stuff? Do I drive a clown car? Did I just create a death trap on wheels? Hopefully this doesn't all come crashing down mid-trip.

4. No matter how short or long your trip is, you always have those five minutes of realizing you're leaving again.

Everything that is familiar to you is being left at home. Your parents, your pets, your family, your bedroom, your friends… It feels like everything is being left behind for a good portion of a year. You feel slightly sad but content.

5. But you also are excited over the adventures that await once you arrive back to school.

Once you're super close to reaching your destination, you get the butterfly feeling in your belly. It's a mixture between excitement in its purest form & just plain old nerves. You prepare yourself mentally for the longest 20 minutes of your life.

6. You get your new key to the dorm and you feel like it's a new beginning.

In reality it looks exactly like last year’s key but for some reason you feel slightly different. Then you somehow manage to either get lost or distracted walking the two feet to you new dorm.

7. You start to unload the car and lug totes into your dorm.

Your arms are killing you because you just moved all this stuff the day before. By the time you get to the last box, your arms feel like noodles.

8. If you're lucky, you have people moved into campus already who will be willing to help you carry your stuff.

An overwhelming sense of happiness and pure joy will overcome you when you see them walking over to offer to help you. This college is a family...a family that loves you enough to carry your junk!

9. You first walk into your new dorm with an impossible to deny sense of satisfaction.

This is your new home for the majority of the next year. You will experience so much of life and then come back to this room that you own half of. Embrace its beauty!

10. Unpacking and organizing are the most dreaded portions.

You have to take your neatly compressed boxes and explode them into a windstorm of notebooks, shampoo, & bedding.

11. Once you are finished unpacking the dorm feels like home but is still completely new.

You try to get into a groove but it still feels odd to you. Eventually, you just jump head first into your freshly made bed and embrace the weird feelings of finally being back at your college home.