Past, Present, and Future

I have this terrible habit of wanting to be in any time but the present. I am nostalgic about high school, even though at the time all I wanted was to be done with it. And at the same time, I am super excited about the future. I am always in such a hurry for now to be over, and to get on with whatever's next. I wonder if that's part of being a "young adult" or if I will always feel this way.

I have to remember how lucky I am to be in the position I am. I know lots and lots of friends that never got to experience college life. They never got to move into a dorm, go to sports events to cheer on their team, go to a fraternity formal, experience an internship, get involved with campus life, and prepare for graduation. I love feeling like an essential part of this community. I belong to this awesome "club" of being a college student- where my life centers around classes, tests, and the occasional drinking at parties on the weekends ;-). I am at a point at which I have an infinite number of paths I can take towards my future, and I get to pick virtually any one I want! I get to choose what the rest of my life will be like right now. I have these few years where I get to be an adult in the sense that I make my own decisions, and I don't really have anyone to tell me what to do. But at the same time, I don't have all the responsibilities of paying bills and all that stuff. It's such a unique experience that a tiny fraction of people in this world gets, and I should be taking full advantage of it.

The problem is that I want the responsibility of paying bills. I'm tired of attending class and taking tests- I want to apply all this learning. And I'm kind of annoyed with my peers. Very few of my classmates are at a point where they are ready to get married and start a family. I don't know any of my peers who are faced with decisions right now like whether to move back near our parents, or stay here, or move somewhere else entirely. Our friends see us as sort of an anomaly and tease us quite often for being "an old married couple." They don't understand what it's like to be in a committed relationship. I can't think of one of my friends that's dating someone right now that they've been with for more than 9 months! The vast majority of my friends are single, and frankly I'm sick of hearing about who is interested in who, and how can I get this guy to like me, blah blah blah. I'm even more sick of hearing about these people who "hooked up" over the weekend, but they didn't really mean it and now they're worried that the other person is serious about the relationship...... give me a break! How could you "hook up" with someone and NOT think it's serious? I have kissed one person in my entire life, and we were dating for over 6 months before that happened (granted, we were 14 years old). I feel like I am so over college life. I'm ready to get on with the next chapter. It was fun (really fun) for a while, but I'm ready to begin my real life.

Funny, I remember feeling this about 4 years ago- right about when I was finishing high school :-)