The first thing that I did when I came home from college was sleep. Not just a drowsy nap or a hazy, jet-lagged rest: I mean a full-body, dreamless, unconsciously drooling for 21 hours in a cold sweat, lights-out collapse. I curled up in the white cotton sheets of my old bed, letting the familiar shape of the mattress embrace me like a hug from an old friend. I fell asleep the Thursday night I arrived home and didn’t open my eyes until the sun was setting the next day.
When I finally stumbled into the kitchen in my smudged, crusty makeup, and clothes from the day before, my mom looked at me with a mix of concern and confusion. However, she certainly wasn’t surprised. I had just told her about my last week of school; it was spent relentlessly scrawling on a whiteboard trying to cram for my final exams, laboring over final papers, and solitarily packing up the entire dorm room that my parents had helped me set up, all while living off an assortment of energy drinks and protein bars.
Her daughter had returned from the land of the dead in sweatpants and a hoodie that were in desperate need of washing. And just like clockwork, she hit me with the classic eyeroll-inducing phrase: “look who decided to finally join us!” I’ll admit, it was definitely warranted this time.
“I’m alive!” I replied as I cracked a smile, smoothing back the myriad flyaway hairs that had escaped from my bun in my deep sleep. They all laughed, but after the sheer amount of energy drinks I had consumed and all the sleepless nights I had persevered through, I was only half joking. Coming home was like finally stepping off a perpetually running treadmill set to the highest speed, one that I wasn’t sure I would be able to endure — especially when it was cranked up past the limit during my last week.
College doesn’t tire you the way people expect it to. It doesn’t leave you panting at the finish line. Its rapid pace leaves you frayed, internally and invisibly. At school, rest is rationed. You take it in gulps; 20-minute power naps between classes or accidental dozing off at 3 a.m. while your laptop is still open to a half-finished paper.
Don’t get me wrong, I had the time of my life during my freshman year of college in every respect, but I also routinely got four hours of sleep in the name of balancing my academics, social life, and extracurriculars. I could feel the toll that sleep deprivation was taking on me, marked by my raging headache and waning ability to regulate my emotions. I wasn’t quite sick, not too visibly at least, but I was spent. I knew that sleep was the only cure.
Who knew that so much independence comes with so much exhaustion?
That’s why, when I walked through the front door of my house — this soft, clean, familiar place — I exchanged a deep exhale of stress for an inhale of comfort. Then I crashed. My body shut down like a laptop that hadn’t been rebooted in months. Although it’s easy to mistake that kind of sleep for withdrawal or avoidance, it was just the opposite. I simply needed to let my nervous system unravel.
Sometimes that means disappearing into bed for a full day. Other times it means being out until 2 a.m. at a sleepover with old friends, our laughter echoing into the same air we once breathed in high school. The rhythms are unconventional, yes, but they’re mine.
My mom and I have always had one of those rare, golden relationships. The close-knit, openly communicative kind of relationship that other people envy. She’s never just been my mom. She’s been my co-pilot, my safe space, my editor, and my sounding board. She always knew what snacks I liked during finals, and when I could really use a hug or a mental health day. During the college process, she was my lifeline: helping me write essays, checking deadlines, and believing in me when I couldn’t see two feet in front of myself.
And while I tried my best to call while I was away at school (sometimes I did, I swear!), she knew that when I didn’t, it wasn’t because I was pulling away. It was because I was having fun. I was marching to my own beat, in my own space, learning what it meant to make decisions that were entirely mine.
But here’s the thing I never anticipated: how hard it would be to bring that life home. How the freedom I worked so hard to earn wouldn’t fit neatly under the roof I grew up in.
I know that sometimes I stay out late. Not recklessly — just … later. Some weekends, I leave the house in jeans and eyeliner, and don’t come back until sunlight with makeup smudged under my eyes and a full heart. I sleep over at my best friend’s apartment downtown, and over a slice of hot pizza, we talk until 4 a.m. about how college has challenged us. How it has changed us for the better.
But the late return still reads like rebellion. To her, it’s a shift that she doesn’t quite know how to hold. To me, it’s a rhythm that I’ve spent the past year learning how to trust; but there are moments when my rhythm doesn’t match hers, and we both feel it.
I may not always text back right away or give a full itinerary when asked about plans. Sometimes I sleep in late or keep my door shut, which can feel like a boundary crossed for her. But to me it feels like a rhythm that I’m trying to protect—one I worked hard to develop while I was away.
After about two weeks of being home, my mom and I talked, alluding to our boundaries. She was the one who taught me how to advocate for myself, after all. I wanted her to know that I’m not trying to run from responsibility and routine. I’m not pushing her away. I’m recalibrating, weaving myself back into this version of home that now feels both familiar and slightly foreign. The curfews that used to make sense now feel tight, like shoes I’ve outgrown. That doesn’t mean I want to cut ties, I just need a little more room to move. What I asked of her was to please let me figure out how to exist here again without shrinking back into someone that I no longer am. And we listened, not just heard, each other. Boundaries aren’t rejection, they’re communication.
In college, I learned how to say no and put myself first, how to leave a conversation I didn’t want to be in, and how to stay strong when it felt like everything was crumbling around me. I learned to trust myself. But none of that means I don’t need my mom; I just need her differently now. Less like a lifeguard and more like a lighthouse. Someone steady and luminous, even when I drift out farther than she’s used to.
I know she still wants to support me and keep me safe. And I still want that. But perhaps the safety I need now isn’t in early wakeups or check-in texts; it’s in knowing that she trusts me even when I’m not visibly performing responsibility.
Even though I’m more independent now, some things never change. Like the fact that I’ll always “borrow” things from her closet, especially her heels that magically seem to fit my feet perfectly. She hates it. Always has. But I do it anyways because when I put them on, I feel close to her. I get to parade around with a fraction of her chicness confidently, just like her. I’ll never tell her that, though. I’ll just try to sneak them back into her closet and hope she doesn’t notice (she always does). We bicker, we laugh, we roll our eyes, and we move on. Our relationship is built on love, not perfection.
So I thank her for loving me when I’m quiet and when I’m loud. For letting me figure my life out on my own but standing close enough that I can always seek advice. I promise I’ll always come home … just maybe not before midnight.
These celeb parents have gotten very real about their kids growing up.
