They’re back! Once again, LSU’s campus has been invaded by the annual flow of fledgling aspiring collegiate wanna-bes seeking the true LSU experience. Ahh, spring testing, it seems like only yesterday that it was me stumbling across campus with a twisted map in hand trying to find the building for my tests.
It’s where I first became acquainted with skipping unneeded examinations and studying the science of beer.
How times have changed, for me at least.
There comes a time in every college person’s life when we realize our own graduation mortality.
Some call it a quarter life crisis, some call it growing up and some call it walk around all day looking panic-stricken.
For me, it’s a combination and it’s really starting to hit me hard.
I’ll soon be 21, which used to seem like an unreachable number I’d never get to, but now as it approaches, I covet it less and less.
The other day I handed the bouncer my real ID at a local bar and instead of slapping my hand with stickers and stamps saying UNDER 21, he handed me a bracelet and smiled.
This takes all the fun out of trying to get a wrist band if you’re under 21.
I was so disheartened.
Coinciding with the ability to legally obtain wrist bands comes a greater responsibility and a realization that there is life out there and it’s cruelly waiting to watch me fall flat on my face as I try to enter it.
Internships turn into possible job prospects, the fear of failure is more intense every day and I’m so busy with work and school that I can hardly find time to sip a brew and shoot the breeze with beloved friends.
Real life is knocking on my back door.
I envy them, the youngsters meandering around campus this week without a care in the world and with high hopes of continual parties promised with the LSU experience.
Little do they know that for most students the party dies down after the first year or two, except those who enter what I like to call an arrested state of development arising from adverse reactions to quarter life crises.
Some of you know what I’m feeling.
How can I go out there and get a real job?
That means I’m old, a has-been, the “older” generation!
For many of us, this leads to a denial of maturity and admittance into some form of graduate school.
How we all toy with the idea of more school.
Seems good, huh?
Keeping the party going? Not so much. Just more work.
It’s just scary not to know what I want to do with my life. Many people have ideas as to what they think I’d be good at, but do I really know?
Does anyone really know until they’re 39, married with three kids and that light bulb finally goes off in a delayed “ah ha!” moment?
I guess the real journey has just begun, but what was once an uphill battle has gotten much steeper.
Jobs, marriage, families, retirement, death. The party’s over.
No wonder all my aunts and uncles, parents and grandparents told me to covet the time I spend in college.
They wish they were still here.
Too bad it went by too fast.
Now I’ve entered what I like to call “the time I have left.”
I will drink when I can, stay up late and sleep in as much as possible, and still keep my grades up enough so I can stay a good student and have a bright future.
What I’ll have to start looking forward to is appreciating the beauty of vacation as I enter into the world of suits, brief cases, glasses, water coolers, Christmas bonuses, mortgages, PTA meetings and a life worth living with many fun college memories to boot.