Readjusting to Civilization

After being in the woods for the entire summer, mostly alone or with a max of six other people at once, I’m struggling to readjust to college life.

The school year itself is in a weird situation with COVID and at UVM most things have opened back up again and distancing is no longer necessary but masks are still required to be worn indoors and in crowded areas outside. Students were only required to test before arriving to school and on the first day of classes as nearly 100% of the university is vaccinated. Unfortunately, due to the delta variant even vaccinated people are contracting covid and an entire household of my friends is currently quarantined because several of them started feeling sick and then tested positive for covid. During the first week of classes.

So needless to say I’m a bit stressed right now. I’m concerned for my friends, myself, my family, the state of the community and world in general.

On a less dramatic note, now that I’m back in civilization full time I’m feeling (both external and internal) pressure to go out, socialize constantly, get into a relationship or hookup with someone, go drinking every weekend or party, go on all of these social activities like grab coffee with a friend or have dinner, etc….which I would love to do! I miss hanging out with people so I really want to be social all the time but after over a year of heavy introversion readjusting to socialization is harder than I thought it would.

All the while I’m also feeling the pressure of college to get all my home work done, stay on top of classes, participate in extracurriculars, get work done for the lab and herbarium, finish my senior thesis research, apply to graduate programs, and find a job for next year. Did I mention I’m also trying to run a marathon this fall and have no idea what I’m doing after I graduate in December?

So yeah…that’s why my brain has been so scattered lately.

Because I’ve been a lot more stressed than usual I’ve reverted to a lot of bad habits like loosing myself in social media or TV (hello tiktok and binge watching She-Ra), drinking way too much coffee, and not getting enough sleep.

I really want to get back on track with daily journaling, calling or intentionally seeing a friend everyday, stretching for 5-10 minutes every morning and night, having a max of three cups of coffee every day, and trying to get more than 7 hours of sleep.

Any advice or stories you’re willing to share is always welcome in the comments section. I’ll be escaping to the woods this week though I’m already feeling guilty about missing the majority of the arts and music festival happening this weekend I feel like I need to reset.