Have you ever seen "The Maze Runner" or read the books? If not, here's how it starts:
This kid Thomas wakes up in the middle of a maze. There's a bunch of other kids his age there but no adults. He can't remember his life before. He can't remember his parents. He is 100% removed from reality. Life everywhere else just ceases to exist to him and his maze buddies. All he knows is life in the maze and the struggle to survive within it.
Basically, that's college.
One minute you're home and you have your normal routine. You live with your parents and under their rules. You go to school. You see your friends. That's life.
AND THEN, you leave for college.
All of a sudden, you live with new people. No adults. You make your own rules for yourself. You live on a campus and almost never leave. It's a bubble. Or a maze, you could say. Reality ceases to exist. All you know is life in the bubble.
And then it all changes again.
Nine months is up, and you go back to reality, and NOTHING is the same.
Or maybe everything is, and you're the one who changed. But regardless, nothing feels the same. Nothing looks the same. Your routine changes. Your people change. For three months, life in the college bubble feels like a distant memory.
Have you ever wondered what Harry does in the summer when he isn't at Hogwarts? I have. All we know of him is the kick-butt version of himself that saves everyone's life like a freaking boss at Hogwarts, then at the end of the movie, he just goes home for the summer. Back to reality. To be surrounded by a whole bunch of muggles who have no idea how BA he really is or what he does the other nine months of the year.
I'm definitely not as cool as Harry, but I feel like I can relate to this small aspect of his life.
He lives in two completely different worlds, and neither one knows much at all about the other.
When you think about it, college is nothing but strange. Why does being 18-years-old mean you leave home and go to your bubble and make new friends and take more specific classes and all of a sudden have to choose your future? I don't know. And why after four years do you leave that bubble and start from scratch all over again?
It's a confusing system, but I guess that's life, right?
Plans change. People change. We change. Life moves faster and faster it seems, and as weird as it is, I love it. Every second of it. This crazy life where nothing is the same longer than a few months at a time and adventure and new relationships are around every corner is such a treasure. It's scary at times and never comfortable, but it forces us to trust in the One who orchestrates it all, and trusting in Him is really what it's all about anyway.
It doesn't last for long. Just for a second in the grand scheme of things, so I'm soaking it in. The wild Hogwarts parts and the unwritten summer parts. It's all part of becoming who we are, and we're always becoming. I hope I we never stop changing. What could be more exciting than a life that's impossible to predict?
