My fellow peers, we’ve been enduring ungodly amounts of responsibility. Haven’t we? Our high school teachers warned us about college professors being strict, of being tenacious and pretty much unshakable...but they didn’t warn us that they often end up being the complete opposite. We weren’t told that getting out of bed in the morning is much less important when attendance isn’t counted in lecture. Or that when you miss a class you’re forced to get the notes from the kid who sits next to you that probably skipped class the same day you did. Our parents don’t pick us up from the nurses’ office when we fake sick, and they don’t bring the homework we forgot on the kitchen table into the school. We are not kids anymore.
We have to pay bills, and we don’t get allowance for doing laundry, and Mom isn’t there to pack a lunch for your two-hour Sociology lecture that you dread attending. This is real life, and we’re scared. We live off of snacks and naps and we cry over the consequences of our dragged-on procrastination. Life isn’t giving us a slap on the wrist anymore; it’s giving a slap in the face...A big one.
It’s the little things that make you realize you’re not a child anymore. It's like hearing an old song on the radio that you only know because your dad loved it, and realizing you know every word but wish you didn’t because it’s so not your music taste. Eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and deciding that they taste better when Mom makes them. It’s waking up in the morning and not having the option of making yourself an omelet because your dorm doesn’t have a kitchen, even though you wouldn't have the energy to do so. It’s bacon, egg and cheeses and dried out burgers from the campus center. It’s deleting your social media and blocking your exes number. This is growing up. It is soggy French fries and (probably illegal) drinking. It’s crying while watching Grey's Anatomy and wishing you became a surgeon even though you sweat during an algebraic equation. It’s making life-long friends and a career for ourselves. This is it.
I think we’re at the age where we sit and realize how fast time goes by; even though we were so often warned of the lack of sympathy that the clock would have for us. Like, you could take that nap, but you also need to start the citations for the essay that you half-assed. So, you come to a compromise and end up eating Doritos while watching Netflix, and cry the next day over having so little time to finish your homework. This is bad. Now we really have to ask Mom and Dad for advice, and wish we listened when they told us all of it before while we were too stuck in our phones; at least I was.
This is the time where decisions DO matter, they affect every aspect of our lives. We remember things like they were yesterday, even though they were three years ago and we wish we could relive them just once more. We can’t. We can’t go back a minute, an hour, a year; we are here and now. This is the time that counts, the time that we need to indulge in so that we don’t regret missing out on a time that we will see as the “best” time, years down the road.
Love yourself, love your friends, love your family, love nature, love EVERYTHING. We may not wake up tomorrow with all we have today, especially our time. This is the point in life where we need to find ourselves, and to realize the lack of importance that negativity has in our lives. Live happy, love often, and figure out who you are. Follow the path that YOU believe you were meant to be on, not the path that you feel you should be on. This is the time to grow up, for it has already begun.
Everyone tried to prepare us, we can't ever argue that; but we did not listen. We never thought (or maybe we did) that they were right. They weren't just yelling at us about not doing homework or not having a job, they were trying to help us build a foundation for the life we have a whole lifetime to live. So, here is to everyone who tried...Thank you.
Sincerely, the stressed out college student.
