Different person, same life: what happens when you move home after college
When you were 18 years old, you packed up and left home for the first time. 4 years later, you've changed and grown into an entirely new person. Your time at college shaped who you are now. At 22 years old, it's time to move back into your childhood home. Different person, same place.
It's an extremely bizarre and uncomfortable feeling to be right back where you started when you feel like you've changed so much. You feel like an adult (or at least a sort of adult-ish person) trapped in your childhood life.
Of course, you love that you don't have to pay for rent or groceries. You don't mind driving your little brother to his soccer games or picking up your mom's dry cleaning when it means free room and board. But when the old curfew gets re-enforced, you are not having it. Here are the struggles of moving back home after college.
1. You become way too family oriented. Nothing's wrong with a little family time, but when you spend 4 years living with your friends and are suddenly catapulted into your old suburban setting in which none of your college friends reside, you start to feel anxiously anti-social.
symptoms of too much family time include: exhaustion, irritation, eye rolling, addiction to cellular devices... small doses are recommended
— Sarah O'Brien (@fluent_SARAcasm) June 21, 2015
2. Your life feels temporary. You're not staying at your parents' house forever, and nothing makes you feel like more of a hot mess than having half-packed suitcases littering your bedroom floor.
3. Night life. If your family doesn't live in a city, odds are most bars close around 10 pm. Not that you even have friends in the area to go out with. Oh, and don't even think about borrowing your mom's car for the night. It's looking more like an eat ice cream and watch re-runs of "Friends" kind of evening...again.
The downside of moving back home after 5 years....having a non existent social life. Where the cool kids at? #ratchetcity
— Lauren Vizza Rich (@LaurenVizzaRich) July 16, 2014
4. Being judged for sleeping late or napping. How's a girl supposed to get her nap on after an exhausting Netflix binge when her parents keep throwing shade? 2 pm is not that late to wake up!
5. Fear of the unknown. While you don't mind the idea of spending another Tuesday afternoon in your pajamas, living at home gives you quite a bit of anxiety about the real world. You're no longer a child but you don't really feel like an adult yet. People need to stop pressuring you to plan your life!
1 year post-grad evaluation = 1 year first class ticket on the Hot Mess Express
— Nina LoSchiavo (@NinaLoSchiavo) April 23, 2013
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