I had a mix CD in my car, and I heard Reunion by the Indigo Girls and Wildflowers by Tom Petty before I got on 95 to head north towards home. Looking in the rear view mirror, it seemed like it had all already slipped away even though it was still in view. It passed in the blink of an eye.
In true egocentric early 20s fashion, I was overly dramatic about the end of this college era. I felt bereft, ripped from the familiar, thrust forward before I was ready to witness the death of some less responsible, more carefree versions of myself. I had bills in college and I had worked beginning at 16, so the work and bills aspect of real life weren't exactly new concepts to me. My parents didn't go to college. I knew it was a privilege for me to go - did I do it right? What if I didn't? More than the mundane details of adult life, I think I was afraid that leaving meant a turning point I couldn't cross through again. I felt like I was closing the door on endless possibility.
While I've absolutely done things on a whim and felt freedom in the years between college and now, it's never been in quite the same way because I've never been as open to possibility as I was then. That day I feel like I could've stood in the middle of a great plain full of possibilities and gone whichever way the wind blew me. In years since, I've learned to tame the wind.
While I've absolutely done things on a whim and felt freedom in the years between college and now, it's never been in quite the same way because I've never been as open to possibility as I was then. That day I feel like I could've stood in the middle of a great plain full of possibilities and gone whichever way the wind blew me. In years since, I've learned to tame the wind.
When I think about it now and how hard it felt then, I know it wasn't the huge deal I made it out to be. Life went on, quickly. I adapted to being back home. I found a job and stayed there for three years, and what I did there put me on a trajectory career-wise that I'm still on today. I'd never go back to my 20s, or to any previous age. But when I think about it I still feel little threads of melancholy over that state of being young in a time of timelessness.
Just another things I think about post, like last Wednesday's 90/10 post. I write these whenever they come to mind but don't always publish them. I've been trying to be better about that - to push publish on random writings that don't feel finished to me and are unrelated to anything in my life at the time they're written. I mean, if I wait to write about something until my thoughts on a subject are complete or until I can connect it to something that's happening currently, I'll be waiting forever. And I do hate waiting. So thanks for indulging me.
Just another things I think about post, like last Wednesday's 90/10 post. I write these whenever they come to mind but don't always publish them. I've been trying to be better about that - to push publish on random writings that don't feel finished to me and are unrelated to anything in my life at the time they're written. I mean, if I wait to write about something until my thoughts on a subject are complete or until I can connect it to something that's happening currently, I'll be waiting forever. And I do hate waiting. So thanks for indulging me.
