I don't know about you, but I'm feeling 22...
04/24/2013
Let’s be real, at 18 we’re all a-holes. Senior year it seems every adult you’ve encountered since Sunday school questions you about your future and nods with an enthused smile as you answer matter-of-factly. In retrospect I can only assume their always polite response is covering up their actual thought reel of ‘yea right, keep thinking that you little idiot child.” As a senior I thought I knew exactly what I was doing and where I was going- granted, up until I was a junior my answer to the question, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” was flatly, “famous.” I would become a plastic surgeon or doctor of some sort at a university in a big city far from my small town, meet the man of my dreams, graduate, get married, make monies then babies and live happily ever after. I mean, duh? No question. And I would judge those who graduated before me and label them losers if they weren’t hopped up on that assembly line to white-collared security.
Now I’m about to graduate from college (in December) and I want to punch my 18 year old self as well as every other teenager I have the misfortune of encountering on social media. That was harsh… I apologize. BUT the plans you make for life, in general, are perpetually tentative. I am not going to medical school (as of now-again, the tentative thing; you never REALLY know, right?), I am literally at my home- not far away, the man of my dreams is still a stranger, I’m graduating a semester late, I am nowhere CLOSE to being a bride, I literally have ZERO money ($6.20 to be exact) in my bank account and my uterus shall remain vacant for many years to come. A loser by my previous standards, yet I have been extremely successful during my time at IUE and I can’t forget that, but I am also aware that this happy little bubble I’ve been successful in is merely preparation for the next phase of my life; a phase I am equally excited for and dreading.
I am a part of a generation that, as Entertainment Weekly put, is overentitled and underworked and I get it. My parents have worked for everything they’ve given me and I understand the value of the hard work (take a gander at my GPA) yet most of our parents were hard working to provide not only for themselves but for a family. My mother married my dad at 18, had my sister at 19 and worked. My grandma got married at 16 and had her first child at 17 then 3 more followed. All but a couple of my relatives went straight to work out of high school. Generationally, I think we’re different. Most 20-somethings now don’t want to get married or have kids, we’re too busy accruing a disgraceful amount of student debt and overexposing ourselves on twitter and Facebook to really want to be responsible for anyone else. So how do we now unabashedly discuss our future goals and wants with our parents without seeming like whining brats? (We watch Girls on HBO, that’s what we do- or at least what I do). I really don’t know. You see, after graduation I have this plan. But I mean, we’re all going to die and YOLO, so why shouldn’t I be an astronaut or a famous actress or a journalist or a Spice Girl without 40-somehtings thinking it’s irresponsible and grandiose? I guess I just want someone to tell me what I’m supposed to do next like every teacher and advisor has done thus far. What the heck is my plan for life? According to Forrest’s mama,” Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.” But right now all I want is a Reese cup and a schedule mapping it out...
‘Til next time-
Kels xx
