Four months after graduating from the University of Missouri with two bachelor's degrees, I returned to the nest. Not only did I return to my native land of Alabama with a bruised ego, but I was also suffering from a fractured and sprained right ankle. This is not how I pictured my life as a college graduate.
For the next month and a half I attended physical therapy three times a week. I wondered if my ankle would ever fully recover or if I would have to live out the rest of my sad, little life broken. During this time I think I took more ibuprofen than I normally do in a year, and I watched so much TV that my brain nearly liquefied. For a few weeks I had to take baths because I couldn't stand up in a shower without jeopardizing the safety of the rest of my body parts, and I couldn't utilize my parents' fabulous convection oven. I was a feeble child reliant on the grace of my mother and father.
At this point I was freelance writing for an e-commerce website, but the workload had dreadful fluctuations, so oftentimes I felt like I was drowning in nothingness. I enjoy learning new things and purposefully working toward and achieving goals, and in my injured state, without work to fill me with determination, I was just a 22-year-old living with my parents.
When things aren't going the way I envisioned, I remember I'm still doing relatively well. For starters, I live in the United States where there are soup kitchens, homeless shelters and no militant force trying to hunt me down. I also have three paying jobs in town, two of which are specific to my fields of study, and one which is just plain awesome. None of these jobs force me to slaughter animals, work in a smoke-filled room or sell out to an evil corporation.
I'm closing in on having lived at home for six months, and in the last month alone my clumsiness has led to several incidents resulting in financial losses, including breaking the lid of a flour canister. Since you can't buy just a lid, an entire new $60 canister had to be purchased. My mother either jokingly or seriously offered to pay me $100 a month to move out and thereby stop terrorizing her home.
Overall, living with my parents again has turned out just fine. I'm normally at one of my places of work, so I don't spend much free time at home anyway. When I am home, I get to sit on infinitely more comfortable couches than I ever did while I was in college. My life isn't completely ideal, but it is quite interesting.
Seniors, take time to sit back and smell the crisp paper of a test and the notes of a cup of coffee at four in the morning, because the rest of the semester may be the best time of your life... at least for a while. Try not to fret too much about school ending and not having a perfect path to travel. Be happy about the things that are good in life. There are so many.