Spring break is the epitome of shear unrestricted fun. It’s an experience that is impossible to replicate. While it may be difficult to plan or uncomfortable at times, it is worth every minute. After all, a person only gets four spring breaks in a lifetime.

Planning

This stage has two defining characteristics: fear and excitement. It is no doubt that you and your friends will wait entirely too late to plan the perfect spring break. Will you be able to find somewhere to stay? Who all is invited? You’re driving how many hours? How many people to a bed? The list of questions goes on for days, and the answer to each can send anyone into a frenzy of panic. At this stage in the game, it is also no doubt that you’ll want to kill everyone at least once. Take this moment right now to thank whoever planned your spring break trip. At the end of the day, you’re going to the beach in the middle of the semester. Who cares if you’re driving 15 hours and sleeping five people to a bed with only one bathroom? YOLO.

"Sprang" break!

It’s finally here. All fear has melted away and there is nothing but fun to be had. Suddenly, cramming into a bed with your closest friends doesn’t seem so bad. It’s not like anyone actually sleeps anyway. One week ago you were trapped in a musty smelling library cramming for midterms. Now, your skin is baking to a golden brown as the tide reaches your toes. You sip your fourth (or fourteenth) margarita and realize that day drinking is the greatest invention of all time. Spring break is the quintessence of youthful bliss.

The Drive Home

One word: delirium. Collectively, you’ve slept about 10 hours in a week. Exhausted is a harsh understatement. You’re more than likely driving 93 miles per hour with cops lined up behind you. You may cry when you hit Atlanta traffic for two hours. Maybe, you spent those 12 hours singing Britney Spears at the top of your lungs. Regardless, the tiring trip home is the goofiest kind of fun. It’s passing one of your friends on the interstate, rolling down the windows, screaming and waving as if you haven’t just spent the last seven days with them. The post-spring break delirium is a specific form of psychosis caused only by one thing: you just don’t want it to end.

As your semester comes to a close and you find yourself stuck in a library again, remember spring break. The small things may fade with time, but the memories of such raw fun will stay with you forever.