Summertime in college is weird. It's not like when you were in high school where you could spend your days hanging at the pool with your friends without a care in the world. This is because most of your friends now live hours away, especially if you go to school out of state and are moving back home for the summer. You are also probably going to have to get a job which makes your summers a lot less exciting even though you are making money. And since your friends don't live close by, your free time can be very lonely.

Now parents are great. I love my mom and dad dearly, but I don't want to spend all of my free time during the summer with them. I spent 18 years hanging out with them and it's time for me to break away. But it's hard when most of your friends are in a different state and there is no easy way to hang out with them. And if you do have friends that live relatively close by, your schedules probably don't match up so it can be hard to find a time to catch up with them.

Both Skype and texting are great ways to stay in touch with your friends over break. But, if you are like me, when you haven't had a face to face conversation with the person you are texting with in a long time, you begin to read every message as if they hate you. This might just be me overthinking the conversation (which it most likely is), but it just isn't the same as actually talking to them in person. It's more enjoyable to have a conversation with a person when you can see their facial expressions and hear their voice instead of reading the words that they typed and sent you.

Summers in college are basically spent working and missing your friends when you have free time. It really makes you appreciate your friends now that you have more time to yourself than you could ever dream about during the semester. It's a weird transition when you are so used to having people around you all of the time and you are constantly doing something. Summer seems way too chill because you aren't stressed out for the first time in a long time. But since I've had all of this free time, it's allowed me to catch up on the stacks of books that I've been wanting to read for the past year.

If you're like me and you don't have a lot of friends close by this summer, don't use that as an excuse to sit around and do nothing. Go out and find something to do that you really enjoy. Don't waste your summer by sitting at home watching TV just because you are lonely. Go out and do something fun and you might even make new friends along the way!