I don't know what everyone else's move in day was like but mine was definitely not what I expected. I expected it to be like the movies where you move in, decorate all nicely, there's absolutely no chaos, and a day full of tears. Basically, that is the opposite of how it went. I have never experienced an extreme amount of stress until move in day.

First of all, picking the second earliest time was the best and worst idea. The best because you then have all day to decorate your room, unpack, and hook everything up, but the worst because that means you have to get up early and if you're not an early riser that makes move in ten times more stressful. Nothing about this day is necessarily easy.

Then comes the actual move in time. I'm not sure how it was at other schools but at the University of Alabama they did everything they could to eliminate stress from everyone's lives. Of course, none of that was the hard part. The hard part was when we began to set everything in my room up and unpack.

My family doesn't usually yell at each other. We're all usually pretty civil and of course we fight occasionally like any other family but once we were all stacked in a small place with boxes all around us, all hell broke loose. One person was saying how this wasn't right, the other was saying how that wasn't right, the space was so crowded that all you wanted to do was scream every time someone moved because there was just no room to move around.

Everyone was shoving each other out of the way and making everything so difficult. It made you even wonder if your parents were gonna miss you when they left you. Although fighting sees like a bad thing, it shows how much your parents actually do care. They fight with you and yell and stress during move in because they're giving their child up to a school.

I've realized how hard it is for parents the past two days. You don't think about it before but it's extremely difficult, especially for mothers. Many mothers raised you and nursed you whenever you needed it and now you're going off to somewhere new without anyone to sit there and care for you like your mother and father do.

In short, move in is extremely stressful. It's not necessarily a happy day, especially for the people who raised you. Movies don't accurately represent how move in day will actually go. If there is a ton of yelling and fighting don't take it personally. As the last child the yelling and fighting was to the point it was almost unbearable but I quickly realized that after 27 years my parents were in an empty house with an old dog. It's extremely hard for your parents, so don't hold it against them for being emotional.