All year you have been this college student who has been on their own, left to fend for yourself. But here you are, you just finished finals (as you pray for good grades), your packing up your room that has been your home for the past few months, your having mixed emotions about leaving your college friends, while being so excited to see your friends and family. Coming home from college is exciting because you know that you have worked your butt of all year to get good grades and your ready for time to breath and return to the town you have grown up in. However, coming home after your freshman year of college is quite a weird position to be in. You have had all this freedom and independence at school where you made this new image for yourself. Only to return to the town that you once knew every detail about, and where you will once again lay your head down in you childhood room, where there seems to be this sense of security. As you drive home from completing your freshman year with your dads car stuffed to the max with all of your dorm room belongings, there is some anxiety to return to the town you grew up in. You pull into the driveway and you feel at peace being in the comfort of your own home. You run in the house, hug your mom and pet your dog and you have never felt so comfortable. But then reality sets in that you now have to somehow unpack and mesh all of your childhood items with everything from your dorm room. As you unpack and start putting everything away, you start coming across items that begin flooding you with memories. You see the shirt from the night that you and your friends went out and danced the night away. You find the t-shirt that says little on the front from big little reveal, and you can't imagine what your life was like before you meet your big. You find your first pair of sorority letters and you realize that becoming apart of your sisterhood was the best choice you have ever made (I love you all my Sig Delt sissys). Eventually everything finds it's home and you look around your room, and it almost feels like freshman year never happened. Did I even go to college? And if so, how did this past year go so quickly?
As you sit at home you look around the house that you have reached so many milestones of your life in and you can't believe your home. But then excitement starts to set in as your high school friends that you haven't seen in so long start blowing up your group chat (I love you Cancun Clan). You all decide to go out to celebrate being back together, the crazy summer your about to have all together and all surviving your freshman years of college. You tell your parents your going out and you'll see them tomorrow. Oh but not so fast…. the questions start flying, where are you going? Who are you hanging out with? and what time do you plan on being home? Just like that your truly back home, you feel that freedom you had at college start to slip away as you being to realize your living under your parents roof once again.
Coming home from college is amazing, you can eat home cooked food, pet your dog, spend time with your family and reunite and continue making crazy memories with your high school friends. But with coming home, some of the privileges you had at school might slowly slip away just as quickly as freshman year did as well. Just remember that although this adjustment may be difficult, take it easy on your parents, because just as quickly as you wanna run out of the house to rummage around the town you have missed, they have missed you too and want to spend time with their now adult child. Just compromise with them, because as it is, without them you wouldn't be on the path of success that you are on right now, and you would also be swimming in college debt. Enjoy every minute of this summer, spend time with your family (who loves and missed you so much), make tons of memories with your friends, eat lots of ice cream, get tan at the beach, make those unforgettable snap stories, and most importantly relax because when you return in the fall those papers and exams will hit you hard. Your going to greatly miss the care free summer you had, as once again all those memories and tan lines begin to fade away.
I love you summer, please treat me well and be a memorable one for the books, #summer2017
RCNJ class of 2020
