I wrote this prior to graduating high school 11 years ago:
It's always hard to make a decision especially when it greatly influences your life. To some, this may seem easy to decide, but not to me. Deciding whether to live on campus or stay at home is the biggest problem right now in my life. I keep thinking of reasons to live in campus or stay at home. I keep comparing and contrasting ways how each are advantageous. This is twisting me inside. It would be great if I have advisers like the President right now. Either way, I'm still going to college. That's probably the only good thing about this, but should I stay or go?
It's hard for me to narrow down to the simplest reasons for both. If I go, I can learn to live by myself. Still, that does not guarantee me safe passage to adulthood. If I stay, it is less money to pay with tuition and dorm, but still under my parents' roof. I guess it all boils down to one thing: RULES.
With my parents, I've been told to do chores, help out, obey orders... those rules. These have turned me into the person that I am now. Without these rules I'm not me. I won't be me. I've noticed these changes ever since my parents stopped telling me to sleep at nine o'clock or telling me what to do. They still tell me occasionally to sleep early and what to do, but they don't care as much as they tell my younger sister to do them. Ever since they've mellowed down with the rules, I have more freedom. I don't remember as much, but I probably felt quite happy and excited to be able to do more things than I could have even done before. Now, I realize this much freedom is scaring me. Freedom without rules is chaos. It will regress me as a person to something else. Living in campus gives me the ultimate freedom of being by myself. I don't think I can handle that much freedom. That is why I have decided to stay home while in college.
Looking back, it wasn't really a dilemma. I was still waiting acceptance letters from the colleges I applied to. All schools were within driving distance. That said, the furthest I've driven at the time was to our local mall. If I did housing in college, I wouldn't have to worry about traffic to get to class. Just my alarm clock. One of the problems I was hung up on is parking for my car. Most campuses don't let students who dorm have cars. If they did, there was a fee or they have to take the bus to a satellite parking. But I digress.
I'm not comfortable with change. Never have. Over the years, I've learned to adapt and just go with it, for good and bad. Living alone has unprecedented freedom and independence. My younger siblings always wanted that. Understandable. My mom can be overbearing. I've learned to adapt to that as well.
I lived a pretty sheltered life at the time. I was more afraid of not making any friends if I did in-housing. My mom pushed for me to live on campus, but I declined. It saved us money. But most of all, I was uncomfortable with the unfamiliar.
Two to three years of commuting, I made a lot of friends. We would hang outside school grounds. That got to be a hassle, having to report my whereabouts to my mom (where I'm going, when I'm coming home, etc). If you lived on campus, you don't have to worry about this as much. My siblings sure as heck took advantage of it.
I always preferred to be well-grounded. Some may view that as a dull life, but not to me. I didn't really work well with people and was better company with no attachments. Right now, I can do whatever and go wherever. Currently, I'm still a contractor with continued renewals. It's not a stable job. No 401K. No vacation. No holiday pay. It's a great job that I'm really good at. When I get hired full time, I'll get all those benefits. I'll move and live closer to work. Compared to my youngest sibling's squabbles with my parents, silence never bothered me.
I'm done.
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