on commuting and living with parents

Since the Easter break, I’ve started commuting properly rather than sleeping most nights at a friend’s. As a result, my experience of St Andrews has changed considerably. During the day, I’m in the library, the union, or the bistro. I’m studying, volunteering, or working. In the evening, I’m at home with my family in Dundee. The space and time between is filled by two buses and one long bridge. While crossing this bridge I have never managed to avoid thinking about the one that fell down, passengers and all, during a storm in 1879. 

But let's not dwell on the past. I already spend about ten minutes of my day staring at the stumps of the fallen bridge poking out of the water like thuggish fists, failing to quell the stalwart modern optimism of the University of Dundee's rather renowned architecture and engineering courses. This is what I've learned from commuting so far.

Uni is tiring, and commuting brings that out.

I’ve always loved going home to see my family, but the difference in the past was that it was during termtime peace. I’d set aside a weekend or a day or even just an evening when I wasn’t thinking about uni and could enjoy the company of my sisters and my parents and the little rabbit who makes my day when she hops up to me and asks me to stroke her ears. Or, even better, I’d spend the holidays at home, the weight lifted from my shoulders for weeks at a time. Now, when I go home, it’s not to catch a break.

At the moment, I’m arriving home and I’m tired and stressed and ready to tick the day off my calendar. I don’t have the energy to converse properly, let alone joke and sing and dance the way I normally would before going home was a daily occurrence. My family often say that although I myself am not particularly loud, I bring a lot of noise with me, but I’m not sure that’s happening now. Between studies, work, and volunteering, I just don’t have the energy. But it’s only been two weeks, and already I can feel myself adapting to my new volunteering role, which I started at the same time as I started commuting properly. That bodes well, so hopefully I will adapt to this too.

Commuting encourages self-care.

Although home is no longer something I can compartmentalise as separate from uni life, commuting certainly has a lot of benefits. Life is simpler living with my parents. I don’t have to make time for shopping or cooking (two things I loathe with an equal passion) and eating doesn’t happen alone (the reason I’ve never learned to love to cook). My parents have their rules, and the internet goes off at midnight each night. Eight hours’ sleep is suddenly, miraculously, yet oh so easily attainable. I no longer have to worry about paying for heating, and it's amazing what warmth does for your mood. Finally, Dundee’s weather is much milder than St Andrews’ – it’s amazing the difference crossing the bridge makes – and I’m motivated to run again. Looking after my health – and, as a result, everything – is so much easier at home. And sure, that's because my mum’s doing half of it for me. I’m not ashamed to admit that.

But even if I wasn't living with my parents, I think I would still be taking better care of myself than I did when I lived in St Andrews. When you know you can't just go home, you have to plan your day. This means packing food which is going to keep you going. This means sleeping - as we've established, commuting is tiring. When I had a flat within walking distance, my relatively unplanned days would become weeks, and I'd always come home for the holidays exhausted and slightly underweight. Most people probably have a better handle on their lives than I do at this age, sure, but commuting is forcing me to take proper responsibility for my day, and as a result, my wellbeing.

Social time doesn't come quite so easily.

Socialising is the hardest part, so far. I've barely found time to meet friends since coming back since Easter break. If this continues, it’s going to be a pretty lonely end to the semester, and I don’t want that to happen. I can see myself having to actually reserve myself some friend time in my diary at this rate. When I’m living in Dundee, I’m not just going to bump into my uni friends. But living in St Andrews can be lonely in other ways. In the past, several times, I’ve gone days and days without seeing my flatmate. I’m going to have to be much more proactive about socialising now, but it’s also less vital now that the house I’m going home to is full of people. When you’re a family of six, there’s always someone there. It’s much nicer.

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St Andrews is tiny, and being in Melbourne taught me I’m definitely a city person. It’s important to get breaks from the small-town commotion, to go somewhere bigger and calmer and gentler. Equally, being a visitor to St Andrews rather than a resident has shown me a different side to it, and I am very lucky to get to study in this old boarding house by the sea. I’m glad I get to spend each day both in a town and in a city. I'm also very lucky to have this option - it's a real money-saver and having parental support just 40 minutes away is something most students just don't have. It was definitely the right decision to commute this term.