As I move into my first apartment, I am scared. Beyond scared, actually. Moving into a new place where basic survival depends on your own abilities is horrifying. I scorch eggs into the pan as I cook. My idea of cooking dinner tonight is a grilled cheese sandwich. I am aiming low here. In the dorms, you could go to the dining hall and only had minimal cleaning jobs. Moving into an apartment means taking on all of these very real, adult responsibilities.

I won’t lie, I wasn’t exactly a peach on move in day. I had been at a Green Day concert the day before, and had only gotten home about two hours before leaving to go to school. My mental list of things I had to get done was beginning to grow, and, sometimes, change is hard to process. Especially a change this big. Thus, I was rather awful on move in day and I feel bad about it. It wasn’t fair to be like that to my family when all they want in the whole world is to help.

By the end of the first night, most of my things were put away in the drawers, and I had scraped by without having to make myself food - thanks to my mom and Subway. I knew ‘day one’ of the semester would be different - there’s no mom or Subway here now. Its all on me.

I was really hesitant to the idea of the apartment and all the change it would bring to my life. Even now, 24 hours later, I am nervous but more excited now. I have my little oasis with a wall of photos and a woodsy tapestry on the wall. Its bright and fun and homey with the faces of friends and family held up by colorful tape. With our bedroom doors open, my roommates and I yell down the hall to each other like we still live two feet away from each other but now we also have privacy!

So today, after a long day of classes and crossing things off my checklist, I set myself to the task of making dinner. It was a highly intimidating thought. During the day, I set my mind on soup and grilled cheese, a relatively simple meal. My roommates made dinner for themselves as I finished up some work. I quickly made my food and joined them. We sat at our kitchen table and traded stories about our first day of school and how exhausted and under-caffeinated we were.

Sitting there eating our odd array of food and laughing to stories about summer break and our lives back home, I realized why going out of my comfort zone was so important. I need this experience of surviving on my own. Someday I will come to see just how valuable this opportunity has been; for now, however, I’ll be meandering around the grocery store lost, having forgotten my list…

Milk?

Eggs?