The stores are full of highlighters and notebooks, college freshmen are excitedly packing cars and all the rest of us are dreading the return of the school year. Gone are the long summer days filled with menial summer jobs, no homework, Netflix binging, swimming, tanning and relaxing without the stresses of school.
While I am sad to see summer come to an end, I am begrudgingly excited to start school once again. I love pulling my school supplies together, planning my classes, preparing to learn many new things and starting up another great year.
Though summer is great, there is something great about heading back to college and back to the home away from home. You are back with your friends, your peers, your drinking buddies and the people who make your life so much better. You are back in a place where life revolves around pizza, chocolate and coffee. You are back to a time where there are no curfews, mom and dad don't know how late you stay out and the only rules involve finishing homework on time, no matter how many all-nighters it takes to complete it.
The years of college are short and it is easy to get caught up essays, stress and wanting summer to never end. It is easy to get tired of homework, roommates and your college town. However, once all of that is gone, you will be surprised how much you want it back. It is hard to know it at the time, but you are truly making some of the best memories of your life. These people may be your friends for life, your future spouse or the people you think back on and wish you had stayed in touch with. The things you are learning may not be fun in essay form but they are shaping you for a career. College is a time for making memories, learning about yourself and living life to the fullest.
I never get to go back to college. My four years are up. I am married, a homeowner and a graduate student now (which is rather different). Don't get me wrong, I love my life but times like back to school make me wish that I was moving back into a house full of my best friends, preparing to start another year of pizza, beer, essays and memories.
My advice to you is to embrace the back to school blues. Get excited for classes, reunite with your friends and make the most of it. College is so short in the long scheme of life; soon you will be looking longingly at the notebooks and highlighters in Walmart and wishing more than anything you were dreading going back to college like the young people you see buying their mini fridges and school supplies. You will want to stop them and tell them to embrace this time in their life because someday it is all you will want back.
