Tuffy Luv Wishes She Was Abroad And Not Just A Broad

[To ask Tuffs a question, shoot her an e- at tuffy@collegecandy.com, you dig?]

Dear Tuffy Luv,

By reading your entries on CC, I saw that you studied abroad! I’m a few weeks away from the end of my semester abroad (London, to be exact). I have had a blast spending the last few months travelling around Europe, being surrounded by cute british accents, fabulous shopping and all wonderful things European.

I’m really excited to go back home and reunite with friends, family, etc, but I’ve heard a lot about “reverse culture shock” and that sometimes it can be a mess going home after being away for so long. Any advice on what to do when I get home? Would it be easier to jump right into home life again, maybe take a few days of solitude to sort my life out again? Ugh, how bittersweet to be leaving.

Love,

a fellow study abroad-er

Dear Study Abroad-er,

Definitely give yourself a few days off.

It’s so freaking hard to readjust to your old life after getting back from a great adventure. You figure you’ll just be like, hey, I’m home, cool! But for some reason, your body is like, where’s the food I’ve been eating for the last five months? Where are the superintense new friends?

Everything is so much more intense when you’re away from home, especially friendships (and relationships) because you’re with the same group of people, experiencing new things together. Make sure you stay in touch with these people! It will help ease your transition back into your life. Seriously, don’t go cold turkey.

For me, it was helpful to make a scrapbook. If you do it while the memories are still fresh, you’ll have a much better keepsake to look back on. Plus, making it will help give you closure, because, like, you can look at all the things you’ve done and people you got to know and places you saw and know that you accomplished something (a life experience, at the very least).

So, yeah, you may be blue for the first week back. But don’t stress–soon things will be totally back to normal. Just give yourself a little time to get back into the swing of things, yeah?

Safe trip home, honey!

Hearts & Skulls,

Tuffy Luv