There I was graduating high school, overly ready to embark on this journey of college. I was ready to be independent, live in a different state, not be in “school” anymore, cause like, college wasn’t really “school,” right? Wrong. All summer I anticipated coming, I would buy things and pack things, I met my roommates and connected with them on social media. All of this with the anticipation that college was exactly what I needed, and I was excited. Don’t get me wrong, college is WAY better than high school but I think I made college out to be this easy breezy experience where I just hung out with people all the time and did fun things. Yeah no.
Homework.
So much homework. You think you know what homework is until you go to college where basically your only job is to do homework, and they know that, and they utilize that. More often than not are you up until the wee hours of the morning trying to get that paper done, that math homework, that study guide. You start off the year with all this motivation to do everything, and then two weeks in it hits you like a huge, wide, heavy, bus. You have no motivation to do any of your work, your bed becomes your best friend, you greet it as you walk in the room because it is the only safe place. You know that once you lay down in it, all your problems go away… until you wake up from a three-hour nap and still have all the homework to do. Along with the no motivation, you begin trying new things to find motivation: homework on the bathroom floor, in the closet, in the fridge, anything to spice up life and take away from the fact you are doing homework.
Friends.
On a more positive note, you make some killer friends. And since you all live in the same place you see them every day. Now for some people that may seem daunting, like, “no I would not like to see you every day” but I promise when you make good friends it is a beautiful thing. You walk around campus and see them and you wave and yell and run and jump. You get lunch with them on a whim, and experience all the college activities. You watch movies and talk, and just live life together...it is kind of a beautiful thing I tell you.
Going home is weird.
Is home really still home? You have been at school for three months living a life there and then you go “home” and you think “oh my, I feel so torn.” Home feels like home, school feels like home, WHERE IS HOME? Well, technically home is where the heart is, but besides that you are in a confusion. You are an adult now, living adultish life and it is so odd to be back home… and then go back “home” to school. Uh, I hope this all gets easier.
Change.
SO MUCH CHANGE. Everything in your life changes. You are now independent, living with strangers, trying to figure out how to do school. It is all so wild, you really have the freedom to live life how you want, which sounds cool at first, but then you are trying to decide what to do for the rest of your life and it is like, “eh, maybe I’ll go back to high school.” You are living with all these other people you don’t know and everyone lives differently and you have to figure out how to live well together and wow is that a challenge. Lots of change, but it gets better as you begin to figure things out, I promise.
All in all, college is an experience like no other, in the best way. It’s hard, but it is exactly what we need. It’s that nice period in our lives where we don’t have to be full adults just yet, but we are like baby adults. As time goes on we will figure out how to do this whole thing better but for now we will just navigate these simple things.
