Something I have discovered about myself is that I am not good at going back to school. Whether the semester prior was fantastic or brutal, whether my grades are sky high or in the toilet, whether my time at home was relaxing and fun or stressful and exhausting, I do not enjoy the back to school process.
Today I have cried three times, turning things that I could normally brush off into full scale dramatic life-ending scenarios. I’m not kidding. I cried about a burrito earlier. I’m shocked and ashamed but then again we’ve all been there.
In this moment, what has inspired me to write this blog is the last half hour of my evening. My wonderful boyfriend (God bless him for putting up with me-while I’m lovely I can be quite a drama queen on occasion) has been unable to reach his roommates who have his keys, so he’s staying in my teeny tiny dorm apartment bedroom. He helped me organize and put away all my clothes, which is so many that it’s truly remarkable, and instantly that made me feel bad and anxious about whether I brought too much stuff.
Next, we realized that my flimsy Twin XL mattress can barely fit his 6’4″ 240 LB frame, let alone squeezing me in next to him, so we decided that we should split up. I set up camp in our living room. The living room I should add is perfectly comfortable, and he offered to take it but I couldn’t bear the thought of his large body crushed up in the fetal position on our skinny couch or make-shift guest mattress that is actually a dog bed, so I took one for the team. But as we were getting ready for bed I just began to bawl. And then it hit me.
“I don’t want to sleep here. I want to go home. I want to sleep in my bed. I want my clothes to fit in my drawers and I want my mom to be upstairs. I want my dog.”
This blubbering confession, while maybe over-the-top (don’t judge me, everybody has stuff) was just a culmination of this stressful evening of moving back to school. But that’s not important. What is important is that no matter how I work around it, or what I am coming back to, returning to school is my least favorite activity. I know this about myself, and can try to do things to bolster my experience for the first few days before things get started, but sometimes crying to your boyfriend, who FYI will stand there dumbfounded in his boxers saying “please don’t cry”, and drinking some water is the best you can do. Also, fun fact, you can’t cry while drinking water. It’s something about swallowing and tear production being related. So water, wine, tequila: do what you need to do. Sooner or later it will get better. Life has a funny way of doing that.