College is over, you finished finals alive, and you're beyond excited to be home. Back to home cooked meals, your comfy couch, and high school friends, life couldn't get better. But after two weeks, you definitely notice some things that aren't the same as college.
1. The constant expectation of a clean room.
Being away at college for almost 9 months means absolute freedom and no parents getting at you to make your floor visible to the rest of the world. Whether your desk had one too many papers on it or you faced the daily toxic wasteland, lets be real, the only time you actually cleaned your room was when your parents came to visit. Now that you live at home again, you probably face the daily "Make your bed!", "Open the blinds! You're not Dracula!", or the classic "Fold your clothes or I'm donating them!" After a few weeks, you might even notice yourself resorting to some old tricks of giving your room the appearance of being clean...even though it's all shoved under your bed.
2. Your parents think you are their new personal maid service.
Your mom likes to play the little game of "Just one more thing please! You're the best!" now that you're back, and you start to question how she managed when you were gone.
3. Shoving a semester class into 4-8 weeks.
Going into the class, you constantly reassure yourself that you can definitely do this. By the end of the first week, you're probably starting to doubt yourself. And by two weeks, you officially hate yourself for thinking you had enough motivation to get through the class.
4. Working in a heavily populated place and still knowing more than 50 percent of the people.
Pats on the back because you worked your butt off at school this year and landed the coolest internship in the city. Walking downtown everyday, you start to feel like a real adult stepping up in the world until every corner you turn, you see someone you know. Not only do you just recognize them, but they're probably someone you went to elementary or middle school with, or even that person you didn't particularly like in high school and hoped you would never see again. Even if they were tolerable, this usually leads to some very awkward and confusing eye contact and somehow ends with, "Let's just both pretend like we didn't see each other..."
5. Remembering how annoying driving is.
You love having the freedom to get up whenever you please and just drive until, whoops...it's 5:00 and you just hit rush hour traffic. Not only that, but people keep cutting you off left and right! You realize driving is such a hassle and constantly rock, paper, scissors between your siblings for the title of "Chauffeur" to your little sister.
6. Fighting for the car.
But of course when you're not chauffeuring and you want to actually take the car somewhere other than the local grocery store, you can't. Because your older brother (who previously totaled your car) "needs" it to go to his high school girlfriend's party and surprise, your little sister had a birthday while you were gone which means another new driver in the family.
7. The classic "How was college?"
It's an inevitable and inescapable question. At first, it's kind of nice telling family members about the great year you just had at college. By the 20th time, you have the same formulated response to allow for the least amount of questions and a quick escape.
8. No excuse to justify eating junk food and not exercising.
At college, it was easy to accept that you couldn't always eat the healthiest because not all campuses offer great options. And you definitely don't want to distract yourself from that awesome study session to go workout (even though you're probably going to binge on Netflix instead). Without the crazy school schedule and all the other activities going on, you probably have the ability to make time to workout. It's a constant struggle with your conscience to do the right thing and get off the couch or eat fruit instead of that bag of chips.
9. Most of your friends are keeping busy, too.
In college, summers are not the same. You probably look at summer as an easy opportunity to replenish your bank account (at least to get you through the first few months of college...) and so do all your friends. It's tough finding the perfect time to get all your friends together and be #reunited. So when your friend gets the day off work and wants to take a day trip to the beach, the hardest words to come by are "I can't, I have work." :(
10. Missing college friends.
The likelihood that you live within close proximity of all your friends from college is slim to none. It can be so hard to not text your friend saying, "I'm coming over" and walk five steps to their room. One of the best parts of college is the distance from your friends since you literally live with them.
Although parents nag, siblings aren't always the easiest to deal with, and college is a great experience, you know there's no place you'd rather spend your summer. Besides, home is where the heart is and that's why you keeping coming back.
