To all of my friends back home:

How are you? I hope you’re doing okay, with work and school and everything. And I hope you’re having an amazing day. I miss you terribly.

Growing up is a rollercoaster, to put it simply. You’re figuring that out, too. Or, for those of you still in high school, you will soon. You think you have it crazy now? Just wait. I don’t know the last time I did laundry. Or did my hair. Or wore shoes other than Nikes. Some of my friends tell me that they don’t even have time for underwear.

It’s that time of year again. Everyone has gone off to college, leaving friends, family, and the life they knew behind. I did that over a year ago. At the time, I thought I had everything planned out.

College will be so cool, they said. You’ll have a bunch of free time to yourself, they said.

They lied.

Oh, how I want to text you. I want to call you up, to see how you’re doing. To catch up, to hear about everything going on in your life. But the thing is, I don’t have time. And that sounds mean, terrible, I know. But I’ll give you a run-down of a day in the life of a college student.

Wake up. You’re probably late, because you have to be up at some ungodly hour or got about three hours of sleep, and you look homeless because of it. You brushed your hair? Great job, you. Walk/Bike/Drive to class. If you walk, give yourself half an hour. If you drive, still give yourself just as long to find a parking spot. You’re in your first class. Your professor is probably the type that bases his exams on his lectures, so you sit there, fingertips hovering over your keyboard, ready to jot down every syllable he speaks so you don’t miss a point on the next test. You’re out. You have ten minutes to get all the way across campus, normally a fifteen-minute walk. But you believe in yourself. You have no other choice. So you frogger your way through people and buildings, hardly registering that you’re losing breath. You get to your class, only two minutes late, what a record. You come home, planner open, butt planted in your desk chair, and get started on the homework overload. You check the time. Oh, it’s already 10? Time for dinner. Then shower. And by the time you’re out, you can hardly keep your eyes open. After what seems like fifteen minutes, you wake up again.

There might be a total of an hour throughout the day that I can have time to breathe. And that’s just what I’m doing between that time- trying to breathe. Trying to relax, catch up on sleep, make a healthy meal, get some exercise, and of course, call mom. And for some of that time, I’m catching up on social media. I’m looking at your snapchat stories, your twitter profiles, and your newest selfies on Instagram. Even though I may not have time to FaceTime you or call you or even hold a decent texting conversation, I still care about everything going on in your life. I want to call you up, but I'm only finding time for small-talk, and I care so much more than that.

So we may not talk as often as we would like to, but I promise I still love you.

Always,

Your Friend at a Four-Year