1. How low to the ground your bed is.
Seriously. If your dorm bed is lofted at school, for bunk beds or storage reasons, you come home to a bed that you don’t need to jump into. Which, while it’s a comforting change of pace, is still pretty different than how you’ve been living this whole semester.
2. Space.
I have my own room at home, and existing in said space with no one but me was kind of weird. No roommate to ask before turning out the lights at night? Watching movies with no headphones? And even if you don’t have your own room, you have more living space than a dorm room and (maybe) a common area. Is your sibling bugging you? Then you can just move somewhere else! What a concept!
3. How weird it is running into old friends.
Running into old high school friends, and catching them up on how your life has been progressing, but you realize there are only a few people you’d actually want to make small talk with in the aisle of Market Basket, and being surprisingly okay with it, because you’re a college person now. Seeing some people you used to be friends with and hoping that they don’t see you, so you don’t have to engage. What’s surprising is how many people fall into this category.
4. How much you’ve changed as a person while you’ve been away.
Maybe you don’t mind eating a certain food anymore, because it’s home cooked and so much better than the dining hall. Maybe your style has changed. Or maybe you feel more like an adult that’s capable of living away from home for an extended period of time. Any way you put it, you’ve changed since the summer, and it’s kind of weird.
5. How much you miss your college friends!
At a small school, you probably see your friends every day. But now that you’re away from school, you can’t see your best friends, and not even the best Snapchats make up for this loss.