Though I may be an eighty-year-old when it comes to the vast complications that technology brings, I am relatively new to this world of living like an adult. As a college student, you come to have a love/hate relationship with living on campus within the first week of your first year. My soul's old age has not allowed me to forget the constant annoyances of sharing a bathroom, the frustrations of living with a roommate in the same room and the unsatisfying selections of food at the campus cafeteria. This describes my first three years in college. Now, as I come into my senior year, I have finally been lucky enough to move off-campus and into an apartment.
This is something that I've wanted for a long time as I like having my own space to escape to after a long, busy day. And it has definitely lived up to my expectations in that area. I do have a roommate but we both have our own bedroom and bathroom (I've never had a bathroom to myself before!) and there's a cozy common area and kitchen. I got to decorate my own room to my specifications (well within the limits of the apartment's rules). It's so nice having a space that is guaranteed to be quiet for homework purposes and also just to relax. But then it's also comforting having a roommate and friend who lives right down the hall, so I'm not totally alone.
Well, that was the case until my roommate left for the weekend and I got to experience what it was really like to be on my own, living the adult life.
The first portion to adult life is having to cooking for yourself. Now, this shouldn't be a huge task and probably doesn't warrant being under the title of horror, until you realize how spoiled you've been having been previously fed by your family and then the campus cafeteria.
With cooking, comes the responsibility of eating well-rounded meals and not just relying on the Mac and Cheese that is made so easily out of a box. There's attempting to cook meat and not get food poisoning and making sure I eat enough veggies and fruits while on the college student budget.
But, guess what my first meal living on my own was... soup out of a can. Not an especially huge step. And as I sat there alone at the designated dining table, I remembered the dinners at the cafeteria surrounded by conversation with friends. Eating alone sucks. I mean it has benefits for those days when you just need to have quiet time to yourself. But, being on your own when your roommate is out of town means that you are constantly alone. Which I realize is just life, because as adults we both have our own things and that's perfectly fine. But then there are the nights...
It's not a big deal, I had told myself when my roommate left, I'll be on my own a lot in this coming year because we each have our own lives to live. And it was nice to get acquainted with the space of the apartment while being on my own. Those were my thoughts in the evening as the sun set and night drew in. The first night, I calmed myself with the knowledge that all of the noises and creaks of the apartment were from the fact that many other people live in the same apartment building. I locked the main door and the own for my bedroom and I slept soundly.
But it was the next morning that I saw the fingerprints.
In the faint light of my beside lamp, I could see the grease marks of fingers swiped across my ceiling. My rational, attempting-to-be-an-adult mind tried to convince me that is was from a past resident or maintenance person who had been hanging something and their greasy hands had simply made the mark. But my imagination that runs somewhat uncontrollably saw the prints as something darker. Being alone in the apartment had just turned into something out of a scary movie.
My mind now turned the creaks and slamming doors as possible intruders. I checked the locks on the doors and windows multiple times, just to be sure. I turned lights on immediately upon entering the room.
Then, in the middle of the next night, I was awoken by a portion of the strand of Christmas lights falling from their place on my wall. The stickiness of the command strips hadn't held up the almost weightless cords? I had fallen back asleep relatively quickly as I was very tired. Suddenly, I heard another thud as the command strip that had been holding my purse and keys fell to the floor. Now, as an adult, I see these two instances as either being due to the fact that what I hung was too heavy (aka my purse) or that the command strips I used were a couple years old. But then I think about the fingerprints on my ceiling and my imagination brings thoughts of the ghost or demon that is most likely haunting my room. So, as a responsible adult, I should probably call Ghostbusters, right? Or, am I not supposed to be freaked out by such "explainable" instances? We will see....
(This article is not meant to scare you off from moving off campus and reaping the joys of living in an apartment with your own bedroom and bathroom. It is meant to prepare you for what adult life is like when you are first starting out... things will happen, maybe unexplainable, probably explainable... but good luck.)
