When I Grow Up!

As college students we are always setting goals and making predictions about who we will be when we, one day, grow up. Many see the "real world" as a place that will only be relevant in our lives once we are adults. But the truth is, once we do enter the "real world," and we are no longer under the guise of being students, spending each and every day studying and exploring in order to make ourselves more interesting and desirable will no longer be adequate. We will have jobs, responsibilities and maybe families; for many of us, those imaginary friends we had throughout college named Student Loans, will finally become real companions.

But until then we can say, I will do this, I will live there, and will care about those things, when I grow up. But what exactly does growing up consist of? When does it happen? Does a fairy come on one special night and certify us as adults? Like many others my age, I look at my parents and I wonder, when did they learn all that stuff? Do we wake up one morning and suddenly know everything that goes into buying a house, filing taxes, raising a family, and saving for retirement?

I am realizing that this time in my life, a few weeks shy of my twentieth birthday, is one that sparks a flurry of emotions, questions and realizations. Five years ago I was being driven to lacrosse practice and to the movies and looking forward to my very first formal dance; fast forward five years and society's expectations would replace lacrosse practice with a career and dances for weddings at which the bride is my own age. Realizing that I can vividly remember the red dress that I wore to my freshman semi-formal, and specific muddy moments during lacrosse practice at fifteen years old, it has occurred to me that the next five years will go by just as quickly as those past five did. And that, is scary!

I don’t have the answers and maybe I never will; I don’t know when I will consider myself grown up, or if that ever really happens. I don’t know exactly who I will be in twenty years or how adults seem to know all that grown up stuff. What I do know is that time really does fly! Being twenty is the time to enjoy the simplicity in life, it is a strange period when a person is praised for enhancing themselves, and imaginary friends remain imaginary, but this time is unique and even limited . Those people living in the simplest of times, are most likely, not entirely independent; but ironically the independence a twenty year old student can revel in is unparalleled, for that reason it shouldn’t be rushed nor should it be taken for granted.

"There are some kind of men who are so busy worrying about the next life, they've never learned to live in this one."
-To Kill a Mockingbird