Lately, there has been an ever looming cloud of dread at the thought of being done with college in two years. I am not a grown up, nor am I willing to forfeit the freedoms the come with almost-adulthood to live with my parents. I don't want to sit at a desk from nine to five and go home to a boyfriend and a cat. I want to run from class to class and live on what is essentially a remote farm full of girls for the rest of my life. I am now acutely aware of how fast time passes here. Just yesterday I was a first-year full of so many different ideas and bad decisions.
At the end of my first year an alumna told me that each year will go by twice as fast as the one before. It is so painfully true. At this rate I will be walking across the stage to retrieve my diploma in about a week. I have a lot of time left, but not enough time.
I can't afford to purchase anything extravagant like you would during a midlife crisis, so I'm forcing myself to become rich with experiences here. I was just writing this in my messy apartment bedroom, and decided to take my work outside. The cicadas are loud and the air is finally cooling after a sweltering day. The sun is setting behind the mountain and perfectly symmetrical, too picturesque to be true, light beams are reaching out into the powder-blue sky and touching purple clouds.
Life is perfect here, or as perfect as life could ever be. I think college is this way for a lot of people. You find your happy space, but it is fleeting. We can only stay and live this way for about four years. It's hard for me not to get bitter about this (I mean, that's why I am having a mid-college crisis). Maybe college is the world's apology for the horrors of middle school and high school. A four year reset period before going out into the real world.
There isn't really a solution to the mid-college crisis. In two years your time is up no matter how much you protest. I'll go kicking and screaming, but always appreciative of my time here more than anything else. I'll make myself excited for the next chapter. So here's the plan: fully live every second. Take all the classes. Meet all the people. Go to all the parties. Study all the nights. We have two years left to set the foundation for the next decade or so of our lives. Maybe life won't be as bad after college if we can set ourselves up for it while we are here?
