Life's Gonna Suck When You Grow Up

Children, gather 'round. This is a rather monumental event in the life of this blog: my 100th post, the centi-post, if you will. Wow, I can't believe that I was actually able to commit to this thing for that long. This has gone from being a fairly personal tome to chronicle my life for myself and a few close friends to involving family, extended family, my mother's friends and maybe even a few strangers. You never know...after all, it is the internet. We've gone through two summers, a semester in Australia, and a full semester here at Houghton where I never really said a word except for...twice, I think. Ah yes, those were dark days.

But, I don't want this to spiral down into the dismal verbal depths of some kind of Oscar speech, and I really did log on with something to say (for a change) so I am now going to move on and say it.

It seems to be a common thread running through my dialogue with friends of late that there is reason to expect that life after graduation will in fact be worse than life before graduation. This generally puts me in a dismal mood for many, many reasons. First of all, I can take the point that this exposure to culture, to lectures by world famous authors and debates, gallery exhibits, concerts and operas, not to mention SPOT, will no longer be available after graduation. This is a major bummer because I am the only culture buff in my family, so far as I know, so after I graduate, when I come to be culturally starved as I know I will be, I will wheeze out one Saturday, "Can't we please go to a museum, a concert, something." Only to hear the gleeful but crushing reply: "No, we're going back to the mall!" Bleh. In my mind, you can only have so many pairs of jeans and that Agaci Too cami is going to rip after one good washing, but a night of intelligent conversation and deep thinking lasts forever, changes you in fact.

I don't need anyone to tell me that I won't have friends again after graduation. All your life you are socialized to this environment where you remain in groups of people the same age as you, when you get into college they even start breaking it up so you are generally put with people of the same sorts of interests. This is not even to speak of the contact with professor's and teachers who are at the top of their field, brilliant and wise and funny people whom you rather adore and don't really know where you will find in such high concentration again ever in your whole entire life. But then out you go into the world and there's no one there to meet but everyone, and what if you're just a shy sort of person who would rather not have to start all over making new friends and rebuilding her life AGAIN, after establishing a life she is already perfectly content with.

No wait, not perfectly content. The main flaw in my happiness here is and has always been the pace of life, the constant stress and busyness, the complete inability for anyone to get on top of their work, their social time, their family time or life in general. Yep, that's been rough for the past three years. But, ever optomistic, my goodly friends assure me that this, too, only gets worse after graduation. Out you go, free as a bird, for about 15 minutes before you're finding a job and a place to live, making the rent, doing the dishes and the cooking, washing your socks, then your husband might could come along and you have to rub his shoulders after a hard day at the office, take the kids out for soccer practice and piano and dance and gymnastics, and walk the dog. And what if you hate your job, it will still be what you spend the majority of your time doing. And then, they tell me, even when you come home you never catch a break, it's always errands this and demands that and another mess that needs cleaning up.

So here is the picture that's been painted for me: no culture, no intellectual stimulation, no friends, no mentors, no time, no peace, no reflection, no joy.

Well, poop.

That is what I have to say, poop on that. If that's the case, then you better believe I'm gonna be a super senior; I'm gonna be really, really super by the time my 32nd year of college rolls around with still no graduation in sight. But you know what, no matter how convinced everybody seems to be, no matter how convinced I feel, I can't believe that. First of all, even if you do have house chores to do after a day of work, it's at least a change of pace, which is very different from the schoolwork all day, go home and do homework mentality of education. Furthermore, I reckon it's almost impossible to go through life without making any friends. There's got to be people like the people I know here elsewhere in the world. After all, after I graduated from high school I didn't think I'd ever find anymore friends, and now I practically have more than I know what to do with. (she pauses and blinks, trying not to think of her earlier comment about how the educational system facilities friendships. Even if I am an introvert to the Nth degree, other people are still extroverts, so with a half decent attitude I might just be able to find somebody. And then invite them over for soup and to play Cranium some night when you're all NOT doing homework. Besides which, there's a good possibility that I could end up as a writer. Do you know how much "alone time" writer's are supposed to have (i.e.-time for them to doodle around in their creative juices and basically do whatever they want?) Sure there are the pressures of publishing. But most writers simply do not spend the entire day writing, which suits me just fine. Gives me time to learn to play the guitar, read books, build birdhouses and go for nature walks and any other wonderful occupation that might pop into my head. And, even, even if all this fails, there is always the nunnery. You don't think I'd do it, but I know I would. If I found life as crappy as every one seems to expect me to, it's off to the nunnery. So don't any of you be surprised if it happens, cause I told you I'd do it.

Anybody who wants to join me in the "Life is NOT going to suck after college" revolution, feel free to post a comment. But if you're here to rain on my parade, save it, because I already hear more crap than I can handle.

Your Toys-R-Us Kid,
S.