They tell you a lot before you go off to college. I know I was told how often I should do my laundry, what dining halls to avoid, and how fast it would take to get from one building from another. But, what I wasn't told was how weird it would be coming home. I mean that feeling of a numb butt after a 5 hour car ride is something I wasn't prepared for, but there are many more things that I was nowhere near prepared for when it comes to coming home.
The Food
It's no mystery that dining hall food doesn't taste as good as home cooking, but wow, there's a moment when you've been eating ramen and grilled cheeses for months that you forget what real food tastes like. Then, when you get home and there's a big plate waiting for you, piled high with your favorite foods, it is truly indescribable. As you eat off of a real plate and the food is actually warm and hasn't been sitting under a heat lamp for a couple hours, you realize just how much you've been missing out. Then, when you get back to school and are chomping down on ramen noodles again that memory of a great home-cooked meal becomes a glittering memory.
Bathrooms
This is always my favorite thing to come home to. At school I share a bathroom with 8 other girls, 9 including myself, so there's that moment when you get to shut the door on your home bathroom and not have to think about someone else barging in while you're brushing your teeth. Not to mention that the showers are a huge culture shock. I cannot believe how much I took my shower for granted. I have a fantastic shower head and enough room to be able to do my choreographed dance numbers while I jam out to my go to shower tunes. And not to mention that being able to not wear shoes while I shower, that is a true luxury.
Boundaries
One of the best things about college is that you get to get out from under your parent's watchful eye. Well, that's something that changes when you go home. You go from being able to go out whenever you want for however long you want to getting those loving and worried texts of "where are you? It's late." This is neither a good nor bad thing, it's just very different realizing that you have to answer to someone other than yourself for a while.
Friends
College teaches you the truth about what you thought you knew. You're far more educated and have a couple more life experiences under your belt now, but there's always that feeling that maybe you can go back to how things were in high school. See the same people and have it seem like no time has passed. However, that is not always the case. Coming home has taught me that the people I thought I was extremely close to in high school really aren't the people I want to spend my small amount of time with. They have their life and I have mine, if scheduling pans out, then awesome, if not, that's not a huge deal. This is perhaps the thing I was not prepared for at all when it comes to coming home. It's very bittersweet, but it truly told me a lot about who my true people are and what truly takes priority in my life.
Solitude
This idea came straight from my wonderful roommate funnily enough. I didn't realize how weird it was coming home and going to bed and not having Kayla there telling me to get off my phone or stop watching Netflix and to sleep. It was weird not having someone to tell to wake up or to take synchronized naps with. And as nice as it was at first, I would be lying if I said it wasn't a little lonely. Well, I guess lonely isn't the correct word for this feeling, I would have to just describe it as different. Not to mention something I never thought I would experience as a person who needs a great deal of alone time to function properly.
So there it is, just a couple of the big things that no one warns you about when you come home for those breaks. Maybe now you'll be a little more prepared than I, and many of my peers were.
