i miss college. i remember starting my last year of school and thinking, holy shit, this is the last fall that i'm going to do this. then i started to get freaked out that i was going to lose touch with the friends that i had built friendships with over the years and immediately caved to facebook. and as great as facebook is, it's not enough. nearly five years after this time, i find myself craving my college days again. hell, just a college summer would be nice. three blissful months of nothingness; drinking, staying out late, laying in the sun, working a little bit, flings. those were the days. it has been well established that i am hopelessly nostalgic so it shouldn't be surprising that i day dream about going back in time to college.
the thing is this though. i think it's more than just my nostalgia for the good times that have gone by. quite honestly, i have plenty of good times now, despite my responsibilities and dare i say it, some of the times i've had since college might have been better than some of my college experiences. age and experience has made me slightly wiser, it would seem. besides the social stuff and lack of responsibility, the thing i miss most about college is the potential. think about it. you enter at 18 and the whole world is in front of you. you are exposed to people you've never seen, different view points, more educational opportunities than you probably knew existed and nothing but opportunity standing in front of you. you can be whoever you want, you can reinvent yourself from your former high school self, you can fall in love, you can build connections for your future career, you have your whole life in front of you. and this brilliance is uniquely captured in college. it doesn't take long upon graduating for that glitz and wonder to wear off when you realize just how challenging being an adult is and how unlike in your educational incarceration, you can't plan for everything that is coming at you. there is no real four year plan. there is no syllabus or course descriptions. it's just life. there is no manual and you finally realize, all the time and money you've spent on education has in almost no way prepared you for what is actually in front of you.
so this brings me to my point. since graduating college, there have been a lot of things that have challenged my beliefs about the world. i think that's a good thing; it builds character (as if i was lacking character in the first place). after college has been a time for me to realize that some people will embrace the amorphous concept that is life and that some people will cling desperately to the notions that they have internalized as "normal" either from TV or some other place i don't understand. i don't consider myself a rebel or contrary but it would seem, especially after recent conversations with friends, that i might be. i have talked about this before, that i don't feel the need to have to do what is prescribed. that my happiness in the future is not tied to someone else's understanding of what it means to be happy. i can be happy by myself as i build a reputation and career. i can be happy if i was to be married and have children. or whatever else i might do. but i have many friends who think that the path to happiness is the one that has been paved by past generations and their examples. the examples that became the stuff of movies, tv and novels. and it seems to me, even though i admittedly struggle with the concept of happiness fairly regularly, my friends who are looking for something they think they are supposed to have struggle more.
i talked before about my friend who's boyfriend stood her up on her birthday. i had dinner with her (let's call her n) and another high school friend (let's call her d) the other night. d has been in a relationship for three years and is fairly convinced that her boyfriend isn't ever going to propose. we didn't really get too much into her relationship because n dominated. apparently, she and her boyfriend have been talking about moving in together. but not just getting an apartment together, but buying a house. upon hearing this information, i immediately had to text jeremy (because this is what we do) mostly for affirmation that i wasn't the only one who didn't realize how serious this year and a half relationship was. he was equally as surprised. the man who couldn't manage to come to dinner and drinks for her birthday was the man that she was talking about getting a 30 year mortgage for a house in the suburbs with. as you might imagine, my head nearly exploded. this seemed like a fast progression but now that i have had some time to process it, i suppose it's not that shocking. i said before that she thinks that this is what she needs to do to be happy. she is 27. she should be on the path to marriage, a house, babies, etc. apparently that path became a moving sidewalk type device. i really just want to sit her down and ask her "are you sure this is the best you can do?" before she decides to make serious life decisions. too bad i can't think of a polite way to ask.
this conversation lead to an entire dinner conversation about weddings and decorating houses. i wish i wasn't serious. the wedding part i understand. i think it is a prerequisite as girls to think and perhaps even day dream about what your dream wedding would be like. so we talked about weddings: locations, bridesmaid dresses, shoes, colors, center pieces, etc. then we moved on to discussing houses, decorating them and my apparent lack of interest in putting things on walls. and on and on we went. my margarita and blackberry were the only things that managed to keep me from drowning in boredom. this was easily the most boring conversation i can remember having in some time and i thought "is this what being an adult is?" being an adult seems to mean a lot of things and i'm hoping that it doesn't have to involve extreme boredom. perhaps eventually i'm going to want to stay in and watch the nightly news, talk about redecorating the den and the rate of my IRA. (i almost fell asleep typing that sentence.) i hope the path to happiness doesn't have to involve boredom because if it does, i'm happy to keep standing on the sideline where i think i've taken up residency. i'd like to be able to be both an adult and an interesting person.
i suppose now is a good time to wrap it up. i have some very important day dreaming about college days to get to while i wrap up my work day.
from the girl who really doesn't care about decorating.
until next time...
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