One of the best things about college is the feeling of returning home at the end of the year. Whether you return for just a week, a month, the whole damn break, or the family reunion in July, the fabulous feeling of being with family and old friends is electrifying.
Everyone wants to hear every single detail of your life, how you crowd-surfed at the biggest party of the year, how spring break shenanigans changed you, how you "just really connect with" that book by Nietzsche, and how you totally plan to lose the 12 pounds you gained during the semester.
However, getting older means that breaks home are likely shorter, as you are rushing off to a summer job or internship that is somehow supposed to get your resume that last minute boost. If only you had done more with your freshman summer than lifeguard or wait tables at that place you worked in high school.
The summer before senior year is crucial, and, therefore, horrifying. This is the last cushion of summer that you have; next time the weather starts to get hot and you start to worry about your (lack of) fitness, it's time for you to be an adult.
What makes this final summer even worse are the questions asked by everyone, literally everyone, regarding your future. Grandma, Aunt Ruth, your older cousin Todd, Mom's hairdresser, and that annoying neighbor who wants you to date her son all want to know: what job are you going to do post-grad? How am I supposed to know what I'm doing? haven't even applied to graduate yet, nor have I lined up a job! I still have a year left, how could I possibly know my life path?
Yeah. I know. Panic Inducing.
So, horror stricken, you, most likely, laugh uncomfortably and tell them that you are still figuring it out, and maybe even drone on about your dream job and the convoluted way you might achieve it. I mean, what do they expect, it's May, and you're just hoping you can afford your apartment and Taco Tuesday ritual this summer.
What happened to being able to enjoy these last few moments of childhood? (I know we are of legal drinking age and all that, but let's be real, mom and dad still pay for phone bills and we all wish they would still schedule our doctor appointments; we aren't full adults quite yet).
Some of our friends are already married with kids and a life, but we have been blissfully extending our youth as long as it will last. We are all aware that college is ending and that the real world is creeping up behind us like the monster that definitely hid in our closets.
We may seem nonchalant about our impending doom when we become regulars at happy hours and regularly need our Snapchat story to even begin to recollect the events of the previous night, but trust me. We know.
We know that our world is about to completely change. We know that our friends, friends that have become family, may scatter themselves across the country in a year's time. We know that some of us will never be students again. We know that we may try and fail in the real world, that we may fall and have to claw our way back up. We know that we may no longer be able to wake up and be productive after a night out, or binge on McDonald's every week without much of a consequence. We know relationships will change, for better or worse. We know that we may not get to follow our real dreams just yet.
But, despite how much we know, we are also full of doubt and uncertainty which is only spurred on by these questions. Who knows what the next year will bring us? Reality is hard to face, but each and every one of us has another year to learn how to tackle it head on. We can't control our future, and we can't honestly say exactly where we are headed, but we can say that, no matter what, it's been the experience of a lifetime. Here comes summer, class of 2017. Enjoy it while it lasts.
