I think I can speak for most kids my age when I say that summers between college are tough. You go to college, meet all of these amazing and unique people, spend everyday of the school year with them in the same city, same campus and then have to say goodbye to them and go to your respective hometowns at the end of the year. It is during the summer that you struggle to readjust to life at home, go through various stages of grief and see virtually everyone you went to high school with in the grocery store. Therefore, to the tens of folks who actually read my articles, here are the 5 stages of grief as applied to college summers.
When we’re kids, we spend everyday in school wishing for summer, waiting for the sweet release of the bell to set us free to run and play and splash in the pool. The same is true for college, on some level, but in many ways different. Sure, we look forward to not having to spend the night in the library, or depending on at least three cups of heavily sugared coffee to get us through the day. And we can finally wave goodbye to rolling out of bed at 7:50 a.m. and sprinting to class to make it on time, but there are so many parts of college summers that absolutely suck. The worst? Saying goodbye to our friends.
The Five Stages of Grief
They say that there are 5 stages of grief and mourning that follow a certain tragic event, or in this case, having to say goodbye to our friends.
Stage One: Denial and Isolation
According to PsychCentral, the first reaction, “is to deny the reality of the situation." Many students during the early parts of the summer enter into this stage, denying the fact that the school year is already over and in the matter of a few short hours, they will have to be saying goodbye to their best friends. We sit in disbelief, trying to recount every memory, wondering where the time went, denying the situation is even real.
Stage Two: Anger
Seemingly self explanatory, the second stage of grief is anger. Because we are in pain, we resort to anger—be it anger towards things, people, circumstances, you name it. During the summer, we might think to ourselves how angry we are, angry at how far our friends live, angry at summer for starting (no matter how much beach time we get in), angry that we have approximately $3.48 in our bank accounts (which is sufficiently not enough to travel to see our friends).
Stage Three: Bargaining
The third reaction is produced out of, “often a need to regain control,” so we try and make deals, be it with God, our parents, school, etc. I often times have found myself this summer trying to bargain with my parents—that if they would just buy me a plane ticket to see my friends, then I would do the dishes for the rest of the summer and maybe even organize my seemingly endless collection of shoes (seriously, it's a problem). I often find myself begging, pleading, for the chance to make a deal—that I will do anything and everything so I can go back to school or go and visit my friends.
Stage Four: Depression
Perhaps the most crucial stage in the 5 stages is depression, intense feelings of sadness or regret. So, we enter into a depression, feeling like it will be an eternity before we see our friends again, not being able to enjoy the summer days because we are waiting, wishing, hoping for the day of our reunion. Sometimes, “we worry that, in our grief, we have spent less time with others that depend on us,” which can add to our already existing withdrawals, realizing that we have wasted away quality time being sad over our friends.
Stage Five: Acceptance
The key to finally dealing with summer: acceptance. Accepting that we can’t change the present, realizing that it is in fact summer and we can’t make the days pass by faster. We realize that we can’t plead enough to be able to gather all of our school friends in one place, and that we will simply just have to wait and try to enjoy our summer experiences, tough as that may be. Once we can focus on enjoying the days of no school and laying out in the sun, we forget about the grief we suffer, realizing that some of our best friends are halfway across the continent.
It’s a vicious cycle, but inevitable nonetheless. We all experience it to some degree and have to sit back and let it run its course. But we must, we must hold on to the hope that one day, we will meet our friends again—only to have to spend countless hours in class with them, because we are ultimately in school.
