This morning I drank water out of a Hannah Montana cup. No, it’s not because she’s my favorite pop star and I want to grow up to be just like her. It’s because it was the only clean cup in the cabinet.

How, you ask, does a girl with three shelves worth of assorted cups get to the point of using what she hopes her roommate got as a party favor for her morning hydration? I hope by now it’s obvious that my kitchen sink is brimming with dirty glassware and dishes, waiting for an unfortunate soul to break down and wash them.

With my classes, my midnight volleyball practices, my work schedule and my various other commitments, my dirty dishes are the last thing I’m concerned with ‘ that is, until I discover a Selena Gomez cup in the cabinet, at which point my concern turns to my roommate’s secret obsession with Disney stars.

I’ll quit whining to you, because I know my problems are the same as everyone else’s. There just isn’t enough time in my day to get everything done and then worry about having clean cups (or underwear ‘ laundry requires time and energy, too).

I’ve said it before, but it’s only further evidence that living off campus provides a myriad of challenges. This time, I’m trying to pretend that my mom didn’t warn me that this would happen.

Remember when Mom used to do your laundry? Cook for you? Collect the dirty cups you abandoned in your room half-full of three-day-old water? The perks of living on your own also come with the necessary evils of having to look after yourself.

Hopefully, the parental units are still checking up on you, just perhaps from further away. It’s so easy to assure them that, yes, it really is OK that you don’t have a dishwasher in your apartment. You are surviving, even with having the responsibility of periodically cleaning the toaster.

If anyone had told me that I would hate cleaning dishes daily, I’d probably say, ‘Oh it won’t be that bad,’ or ‘It’ll be fine, we’ll work it out.’ In reality, I’m right. It’s not that bad, and we will work it out.

Sometimes it’s just hard to remember that I have to take care of me, and not just all of the activities and people in my life.

I’ve come to realize that I’m no more free living in Binghamton than I am with my parents; the kinds of freedoms I enjoy are merely different. Instead of answering to them, I answer to my friends for not having clean cups.

Isn’t it nice that my friends care about my cups? From this article the entire world probably thinks what I care about most in life are my stupid cups, but in this case they’re more than just a drinking utility.

When everyone around me slows me down enough to ask why I haven’t had time to ensure that my apartment is equipped with functionally clean dishes, I know I’m not the only person taking care of me.

So as I rejoice in my bittersweet ‘freedom’ from my parents, I also enjoy the camouflaged tidbits of parenting my curious and troublemaking friends manage to sneak in. As long as I keep them around, I’ll eventually have some clean cups.