When you first leave for college you have one thought on your mind: getting away from all of the finals that you just slaved over for the past few weeks. But the longer you spend away from your school, you start to go threw college withdrawal. You no longer have your friends right down the hall to hang with out, get food, go out at night, and do all the amazing things you just spent eight months doing. And being you realize it you start to go through the seven stages of missing them.
1. Shock.
The first stage of missing your friends might come to you at different times. This may come as your sitting passenger seat with a car full of things you spent all year living with, or it might me when you realize you are the last one of your friends to still be in your hall and you just feel alone. There is no one to hang out with, no one to get Starbucks with, and you going home for a full four months.
2. Denial.
Denial is the time where you convince yourself that you really won't be spending all four long months at home. You tell yourself that when you wake up you will still be in your XL twin with your roommate seven feet away. You lie to yourself just how long four months really is.
3. Anger.
Anger will start to set in when your mom, grandparents, neighbor, mailman, waitress at the restaurant you randomly went to, and every single person you will meet on the street when they ask you "happy to be home?" and the answer to that is no. You get mad at all of your friends because they are not the people you just spent the entire year with. They haven't figured out the new you. They don't know your sleeping schedule like your college friends do, they don't know your new order at Starbucks, they aren't your college friends.
4. Bargaining.
Bargaining can come in multiple forms. This can be the time that you sit down with your calendar and you tell yourself just how short four months can really be. It is so easy for you to just flip through those pages and set the date for when you are back at school again. This can also be the time that you all write in your group chat trying to find a date when you can all see each other. Obviously, with everyones schedule they will never work, but you all are determined to make it happen.
5. Guilt.
Guilt will start to come up when you learn your home friends new Starbucks orders. You then realize how easy it in to fall into a habit. Your college friends used to live a few doors away, and you feel guilty that now a few doors away is your home friends. You begin to feel guilty for all of the time that you are spending with your home friends instead of FaceTiming your college friends.
6. Depression.
Depression will set in the middle of July. You feel like it has been forever since you have seen your best friends and you still have forever to go. You start to get sad about how much time has really passed since you last saw them. You wonder if they have changed since they left. You get sad when you see they posted pictures on Facebook that you are not in and that their Snapchat stories no longer include you.
7. Hope.
The last stage to missing your college friends is hope. This stage when you start to remember that you will see them again. You start planning for the year ahead. Hope will hit you when you are shopping for new school clothes, or even just when your family starts asking you about what kinds of classes you plan on taking in the fall. When you are in the hope stage, your college friends are not far away.
