By the time you are ready to strut down in a gradation cap and gown, all of these things have, at one time or another, happened. Back in the high school days, I thought that by the time I was in college I would have my whole life put together in a nice little walk-in closet. I would have a super hot boyfriend who weirdly resembled Zac Efron, and the professors on campus would love me and would give me a shiny “A” on assignments that I completed without the slightest form of procrastination. I was wrong. So were you. This is what happened.
1. Red Bull Becomes Your Blood.
You are not a true college woman until you have stayed in your schools library, pounding back Red Bulls to finish some sort of term paper that you were assigned literally the first day of school. At one point that night you begin to wonder what it would feel like to go to sleep. But then you eat a McDouble and guzzle another energy drink and forget about your beautiful bed.
2. Hanging Out With Rando’s
At one point usually in your early college career, you are so desperate for friends that you end up hanging out with a group of people who you don’t know, and you probably don’t even like them all that much. But you need friends. Bonus points if you have called one of them the wrong name at one point in that week-long friendship. “Cynthia wait for me! Oh, I mean Jessica.” Oh well.
3. Clean Room? I Left That At My Parents House.
In high school, I made my bed each day and washed my clothes constantly. Wore that sweater once? Throw it in a load! My room was beautiful and spotless and scented with my dainty scent drifting out of my owl shaped scentsy. College? Not so much. If the shirt doesn’t have a stain from a sandwich I ate while walking to class, it’s considered clean. I don’t remember the color of my carpet, at all because it is covered in Chinese take out boxes and textbooks, and my bed hasn’t been made at all despite the throw pillows I brought with me to have the cutest dorm room ever. Who cares, a messy dorm is a fun dorm. Right?
4. Crying Yourself To Sleep Because You Miss Your Best Friend.
This one is a tough one but it’s okay because everyone has to go through this at one point. You miss her, it is understandable. You wish she was right there and you two were watching Full House and dreaming about the prom dresses you would wear. But now it’s time to be an adult and unfortunately, sometimes your best friend doesn’t get to come with you to that point. It;s part of growing up and that is part of college. She misses you too. Promise.
5. Eating Food You Never Thought You Would And Calling It A Meal.
When I lived at home my loving and caring parents made me a complete dinner each night full of fresh veggies, a salad, a main dish, and of course dessert. College doesn’t allow the time to entertain such a dinner. College is full of french fries, day old pizza, and a quick ice cream cone on the run. They don’t call it Freshman Fifteen for nothing kids.
6. Binge Watching Your Old Favorite Show.
It’s as if you are suddenly a kid again. Lizzie McGuire is on YouTube, and you’d be lying if you said that in your college life you don’t grab a quick episode of the beloved show you were obsessed with. That’s So Raven is still cool, ya nasty’s.
7. Joining Every Club Imaginable.
Oh god, you probably are still getting emails from the school’s Ultimate Frisbee club. You also probably still wear the free t-shirt you got from tabling to bed some nights. The beginning of college is fun, new and exciting, and suddenly there are so many different things to join and have fun with. Obviously, you join them all with some weird idea that you’ll be able to accomplish them all and eventually be President of all of them. Every last one of them.
8. You Go Through A “Phase.”
Ahh yes, the phase. Maybe you were a vegetarian for six months, or whatever the phase, you dedicated yourself to it wholeheartedly for that time period before realizing it wasn’t who you truly were. For me, I just really like chicken strips and that’s what broke that phase for me.
9. E.R. Runs.
Suddenly a simple cold seems like the flu, which suddenly seems like the Ebola virus and oh my god, the E.R. is obviously where you have to be. Without your mom telling you that you probably just need to down some Nyquil and sleep in, you take yourself to the E.R and pay for someone to give you an Ibuprofen. You probably made your roommate take you too. She loves you.
10. Your Roommate Ends Up Being a Weirdo.
This will happen at some point in your life. Not all living situations are going to be magical, and you won’t get to go to Ikea together to buy matching bed spreads and décor for the kitchen. She’ll probably host weird clubs in your home in all hours of the night or play heavy metal music to help her study. She sucks. But she thinks you suck too so get over it.
11. Wanna Be Single. Wanna Be Taken.
This isn’t high school anymore when whether or not you have a boyfriend seems like your whole world. Having a boyfriend means no more random hook ups in a frat bed with a frat boy who you don’t know by any name other then “Frat boy with the shots.” It means going home to meet his parents over Thanksgiving Break and talking with his weird uncles. But being single means not going home to meet the parents and not having a cuddle sesh after a hook up with a frat boy in a frat house whose name is “Frat Boy with the shots.” No matter where you are in your relationship status, you probably don’t want to be there.
12. Run Out Of Essentials.
At some point in time you will run out of toilet paper. You will. NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY TO AVOID THIS, you will be stuck. You will. And you’ll read the back of shampoo bottles until your best friend reads her SOS text.
13. Fall In Love With College.
And of course, you will wear that University sweatshirt with pride until the day you die because GO SPORTS (even if you don’t care)! And of course you order Taco Bell at 4:00 a.m. because that’s always a good idea. It’s college. It’s fun. It’s a right of passage.