College gives you independence and brings you closer to the best people you will ever meet - only to rip them away when it's time to move out for the summer. If you feel the same way I do, you will understand these five stages of coming home for the summer.
1. Stage 1: Relief
At first, you feel relieved to be home. Your last two weeks have consisted of non-stop cramming for finals and packing up everything you own. You haven't slept in 72 hours, and the idea of hibernating in your bed for the next four months sounds more than appealing. Your parents make you all of your favorite meals, you get that haircut you've been meaning to get since January, and you don't have to wear flip-flops in the shower. Life seems pretty good.
2. Stage 2: Denial
This relief lasts for all of about 48 hours until your post-finals delirium wears off and you realize that you would go back to subpar dining hall food and shower shoes in a second if it meant you could spend summer with your best friends. The denial stage consists mostly of obsessively scrolling through your Snapchat memories from the past year, FaceTiming your friends to cry about missing them and having reoccurring dreams that you are back in Ann Arbor with your BFFs, eating feta bread after a night out.
3. Stage 3: Boredom
FOUR. MONTHS. IS. SO. LONG. You have never been this bored in your entire life. You didn't realize things moved so slowly back at home until your daily schedule went from class/ friends/ studying/ going out (repeat)- to the highlight of your week is when your mom invites you to your little brother's chorus concert.
4. Stage 4: Acceptance
You get a job, you start going to the gym and you chip away at the long list of things you told yourself you would get done before the summer ends. Yeah, life might not seem so bad, but this is mostly because you have been away for so long that you forget how much better college life really is.
5. Stage 5: Anticipation
Finally, you are only a month away from being reunited with your friends- a fact you know because you have had a countdown on your phone since the day you moved out. You begin to let yourself think about school again. Soon you will become consumed with plans for the upcoming year and the idea of running into your friends' arms once you finally reunite. Only 30 more days 6 hours and 27 minutes until your back… but who's counting?
