+ I have a dog following me around the house, which makes me feel loved.
- I have a dog following me around the house, which makes me feel guilty when I don't give her my undivided attention. That little time-waster.
+ I get to sing Ben Folds' "Rockin' the Suburbs".
- I am in the suburbs.
BUT
+ I am very close to my beloved Chicago!
+ Perhaps the most obvious: real, home-cooked meals!
+ I don't have to be around the-one-who-broke-my-heart 24/7.
(a word of advice: DO NOT date someone that lives on the same floor as you. This is known as floorcest. I can just hear you cringing. Sounds nasty, doesn't it?)
- I am still in the same state as him.
+ No ethernet cord needed!
+ You can listen to the music that YOU want in YOUR room without worrying that your roommate will disapprove of your slight obsession with the Jonas Brothers and Oldies music.
- You cannot listen to the music that you like because when you do, your 11-year-old sister will proceed to play that music over. and over. and over. and over. I will soon be unable to listen to Lady GaGa's "Poker Face", which is a darned shame.
+ Your. Own. Bed.
- Your dad's snoring.
+ Being in a place that you know your friends and family have been. It's strangely comforting if you think about it. They know the terrain here. They don't necessarily at your college. I don't know, I'm kind of weird about things like that, though. To explain, I get a thrill knowing I've been some place that a celebrity or historical figure has been, such as when I went to the Lincolnberry store in Springfield, Illinois in the seventh grade. Abraham Lincoln WORKED there! Which is cool to me.... Yeah, that was the highlight of that trip. Springfield is boring. Anyway, the point of that anecdote was to try to make you appreciate the fact that some of the most important people in your life have walked through the halls of your home or driven on the streets of your town, which is just a solacing thought to me....
+ By this time, you've forgotten about the people that you strongly disliked in high school, because they are no longer a part of your life, so there is no need to apply the aforementioned strategy, because it will likely not cause you much comfort... but luckily, not much angst, either, I have found.
+ You get to bring back your shorts that you have so desperately been longing for because Missouri is almost, dare I say... WARM this time of year! But you didn't realize that shorts-wearing days would come so soon (albeit few and far between at this point), so you brought all of your warm-weather clothes home. That was a bad idea.
+No class, duh.
