It has been quite a while since I have last written for the odyssey and for that I apologize. It has been quite busy in my life recently and I will tell you why in this article. The entire country is hitting the mode of Back to School. Those three words have echoed through the minds of carefree kids for the last month as they spend the rest of their summer attempting to prepare for the coming school year.
While this has been on my mind, there has been another force that mainly college students feel during this time, which has infiltrated its way into my life. It is the woes of moving. All of those college students who live on campus are beginning to move once again away from their homes and families to live in crowed dorm rooms where the bathroom door might fall off at any moment and your roommate quickly turns one side of the room into a pile of laundry that never seems to empty no matter how much he does in the washer.
These are the woes of moving. All the things in life that cause moving to really be a pain in the neck. As a college student I have experienced 4 moves into my dorm room and then 4 moves back into my home, however this year has been different. As I enter my final year of college I have made one last move, but not into a college dorm. I have moved into my first apartment, which comes with many more woes then initially hoped.
The amount of things you have to do in order to move out on your own away from your family is enormous and continues to grow as I look at all the things in my life I had previously used and took advantage of. One major woe that has kept me from writing for so long was the connection to the Internet. While there are cafés and free Internet places you can go; I work full time at a job that drains me physically and mentally meaning when I get home I am not going out again. This posed the problem of how I was to access my Internet connection… without Internet.
This leads into another woe; all the money that you have to spend just to have the basics. I am extremely happy that I have a loving brother and sister-in-law who worked tirelessly and helped me so much with the necessities I needed for my apartment. I came with a single skillet a pair of tongs and a garlic press… needless to say I did not have the proper tools to make meals of any kind. I also did not have plates, or spoons, or cups.
There are many woes that come with moving. You have to purchase new internet and have it installed properly, you have to have mail forwarded to your new address before you don't get that important bill, you need to turn on electricity and water, don't forget food you need that too, also if your new place doesn't have air conditioning you better hope you get a cool day out, lets not forget packing and unpacking, then you find out your oven door is broken and you have to call the landlord to have it fixed, then you realize its not like you have pans to cook in the oven anyways. This is just to name a few problems you might run into.
The woes that come with moving are extremely heavy and tiring. It takes all you have to merely move your things in and it takes any reserve energy and money to keep yourself afloat. This is the feeling many people get when they are moving. What I have explained may just be what has been happening with me, but it is not just I. All around the country people are moving into new places and as the season of college move-ins has arrived many young people are moving into a new place for the first time. It is a big step to walk away from your life and go cities, states, and maybe even countries away, but the woes that hit you like homesickness and financial difficulties can often be outweighed by the pros of moving.
The pros of moving are all the benefits that come from that big step away from home. For me it was the freedom. As I am sure that I have stated in the past I had lived with very young children previously while in my father’s house. Being on my own means that I no longer have to wake up to screaming kids or listen to them whine about their lost toys. Don’t misunderstand I love my younger siblings, but sometimes enough is enough. Freedom and the ability to decide for myself what path I desire to take is important and that I feel is the best pro outweighing all the woes.
God has given many others and me the ability to move away from home during this season. It is difficult and many challenges await those of us that have moved out or gone off to college, but the important thing through all the woes is that you remember your pros. Your reasons for the move being necessary and important should be enough to keep you going through the rough times.
