You know it’s the start of a hectic time of year when you begin packing up your belongings to be stuffed into a tiny room for yet another school year away from home. As you begin doing your pre-school-year shopping and debating what items to leave behind, you find yourself the victim of a hybrid tub of emotions — and with good reason. There are so many different thoughts rushing through our minds and feelings coursing through our bodies that we sometimes have trouble identifying them. However, you can eventually categorize these sentiments once you really pay attention to them.
1. Sadness
Of course you love going away to school, and bitch all summer long about how you can’t wait to go back, but leaving home always has an element of sadness. It means leaving behind home-cooked meals, clean showers and bigger living space; and trading it in for inedible dining hall food, wearing sandals in the shower as you do your best to not hit your body against the dirty walls and struggling to keep all your belongings in a small room (why are we so willing to make this trade off, anyway?). You dread saying goodbye to your family and home friends, all of whom you don’t want to part from.
2. Excitement
The sadness is inevitable, but it’s nothing compared to the excitement. College is a special once in a lifetime experience, and you can’t wait to be back and reunited with your friends. You’re coming back to having company 24/7, the ease of not having to make plans in advance, multiple nights out a week, independence and your home away from home. You came to college as a lowly freshman and built your own life, and nothing is more exciting than coming back to it after a summer away.
3. Anxiety
Classes are starting soon, and so is your accumulating anxiety. Most of us become so engrossed in our social lives once we get into the swing of things that we start to accept that the 4.0 just isn't meant to be (maybe next semester). You’re excited for everything about the new school year minus the classes part, and you pretend they don’t exist, even though deep down you know you’re slowly returning to days and sleepless nights consumed by schoolwork at the library. You don’t want classes to start yet (or ever) and when the dreaded first day finally arrives, you wish you had been more prepared. Why can’t sylly week just last all semester?
4. Optimism
New year means new clean slate. You’re optimistic about the infinite possibilities that lie ahead of you if you just play your cards right. You start off thinking that this is your year — the year you stop procrastinating, get that 4.0, go to the gym five times a week, wear enviable outfits, adopt a healthy diet and gather the courage to talk to that special someone you’ve had your eye on. You’ve got all your goals in sight, are ready to make them a reality and there’s no time like right now, when you have the whole year ahead of you!
5. Anticipation
As you eagerly await the beginning of this new year, in your head you’ve written numerous scenarios about what you want to or think will happen this year. You and your friends come up with countless predictions of how everyone’s living situations will play out, who’s going to hook up with whom, how people will change and the hilarious situations that are inevitably going to take place.
6. Motivation
You enter the school year with a sense of unbreakable confidence. Maybe last year didn’t go the way you had hoped, but now is your chance to make the best of that clean slate in front of you. You have the desire to accomplish all your goals and picturing the sweet outcome is what keeps you going. You’re hopeful, determined, strong and capable. You know you can do it, and nothing is going to get in your way. You go Glen Coco!
7. Fear
What if, in the midst of all this excitement, everything ends up not going according to plan? What if your grades fall off the face of the earth, or you gain another 15 pounds? What if everything you’re hoping for doesn’t happen? You’re excited and confident, but you also fear the possibility that you don’t get to accomplish all your goals.
8. Free
Finally, you’re going back to the place where you live on your own, where you don’t have to tell anyone where you’re going, where you can eat mac and cheese for breakfast, lunch, and dinner as you stay up until 4 a.m. binge-watching Netflix. You don’t have to ask anyone’s permission or do anyone any favors — you are your own parent, your own boss and you are free to do anything you want to.
The whirlpool of emotions and feelings that come with the beginning of the school year can be overwhelming. However, they are normal and are only going to get more manageable with time. @Newschoolyear, here you come! This is your year!
