Most (if not all) schools and universities have transitioned to online learning. This has resulted in college students accustomed to the “full-freedom-and-no-curfew” life have had to readjust to living under Mom and Dad’s roof (read: under Mom and Dad’s rules). This can be quite a change for the college student who regularly stays up until 2am and wakes up at 10am especially if their parents go to bed at 10pm and wake up at 6am.
How do I know? Because I’m that college student.
Okay, well, not exactly. I don’t go to bed at 2am and I’m actually okay with the 10pm parent night routine, as crazy as that sounds. But I’m not going to lie; It has definitely been an adjustment, not just for me but for everyone in my family. Before I left for college, I was worried that my brother would make good on transforming my room into his workspace but it never occurred to me that my entire niche in the family would be taken.
It turns out that while I was learning how to study and exploring my college town with my new friends, my family adjusted to living without me. Not that I wasn’t welcomed back warmly every time I visited, but I could tell that the family of 4 had smoothly transitioned to life as a family of 3.
Not much has been written about how college students are adjusting to being home again. Home to me for the last few months was a place where I could completely relax. In fact, I worked hard to finish all my homework due the week after I was home just so I could avoid having to do school work at home.
But now, my home rather than being a respite from the dozens of assignments per week is a place where I’m supposed to do all my work. That is audacious by itself, but paired with having to deal with my brother on a daily basis again (love you, Bro) and do all those household chores that I avoided perfectly during my past 48-hour visits? Insanity!!
I actually love being home with my family
All jokes aside, I actually love being home, and let me tell you why. The endless chicken sandwiches and bland dining hall food can’t hold a candle to the delicious meals my mom preps every day. It’s way easier to do laundry here because I don’t have to share 6 washers and dryers with 4 floors of students. The love of my life, my labradoodle, Cocoa, is always ready to play or go on long walks. And I guess the rest of my family, too.
The food is great and the laundry convenient but the real reason I love being at home is because whether I’d like to admit it or not, I miss my family so much when I’m at college. I’m lucky enough to only live 3 hours away from the college I attend but that doesn’t mean I miss them any less.
The homey feeling of my house and my childhood bedroom is special to me and it always will be…especially now, when my house is basically my entire stomping grounds. The smell of my mom’s cooking wafting into my bedroom, the sound of my dog barking at my brother to let her in and the sight of my dad working at his desk used to be things I missed while away at college but now I get to experience them every day.
The gift of so much time with family is wonderful, whether we like it or not. The millions of college students trapped at home right now, sleeping in their childhood bedroom and arguing with their siblings like they never left, agree with me. As we grow older, we realize the value of that thing called “family time” that our parents tried to drill into our heads.
No excuse for missing that now, because we have nowhere else better to be…literally.
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Priya Pai has traveled some of the world but her home state of Texas remains close to her heart. She has always enjoyed writing in all aspects, from journalism to poetry and everything in between. Her hobbies are taking long walks with Cocoa in the park, watching old TV shows with her brother and listening to NPR’s podcast “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me” with her dad