The True End of a True Era

It's amazing how one never really confronts something sad, but rather waits for sadness to initiate the confrontation.

Such is the case for me today. I'd been completely alright with the concept of my roommates/friends moving to California. Hell, I'd even been a little excited about getting a place of my own. The degree to which it signifies the real, tangible end of the "college student" phase of my life failed to sink in until I came home from work today and saw our home being rapidly stripped down to a mere house.

Now I can see visible evidence of the change in all of our lives, and I'm suddenly struggling to bear the weight of the whole situation. Boxes are everywhere, the walls are plain white again, and inappropriately happy swing music is blaring over the stereo. I faced the facts and got boxes of my own to strip down my little corner of our universe. I'm putting away books and clothes, and looking at old pictures in a new way. Suddenly I'm stricken by how young we all look in those pictures we took 5 years ago. I think about where the people in those pictures are now and what they're doing. I think about where I am now and what I'm doing. I think again about my roommates. They are loading up their cars and they are leaving here.

They are loading up their cars and leaving me. They should. They'll all go out to L.A. I'll go to South Lincoln. One of those two locations is exciting, and I'll bet you don't need two guesses to figure out which. For them, this is cool, if a little scary. They have their big swing at big success just over the horizon, but they'll have droves of our friends who have gone before them and now reside in Southern California right there to help them along the way. I'll have Lincoln, Nebraska in the winter and three fewer pillars in my support system. I'd be lying if I said I like that. Am I happy for them? Absolutely. Am I sorry for myself? I don't want to be, but yeah...a little.

I try to sit in the kitchen and watch the girls pack up all our dishes, and I just can't do it. For whatever reason, I feel like I'm 14 years old again watching my sister pack up everything we could fit in the truck and go away to college in Nashville. I cried my fucking eyes out when she left for college, if only in the secrecy of my own room. I knew that day that one of the single greatest forces in my life was going to be out of reach. She would never be out of touch and never totally gone, but the time when I was under her almost constant guidance was at an end. Like it or not, the pen was being forced into my hand and it was time to start writing my own legacy. At the time I hated it so bitterly that I wasn't sure how to react. Now I realize that the four years I spent being very much like an only child taught me lessons I never could have learned without that necessary solitude. I know that eventually I'll look back on this time with great amounts of sage-like wisdom and point out the ways it made me stronger. Right now, I feel more like clutching a pillow and falling asleep so that I don't have to realize this is all happening. Much though it sounds cliche, college really has been the best time of my life, and I'm terrified to move out of that period. I've developed so many deep, true relationships over the last several years and grown in so many ways that I couldn't address them all in a million essays. Regardless of how bright the future may be, it's sad to see the end of that era. Maybe it's sadder still to know the era needs to end and try to ignore it.

I tried to go to the University Health Center today to be treated for my nose/throat/chest/wherever else infection, and was turned away on the grounds that I'm no longer a registered student. While that is totally fair, it's also another way to drive home the point that I'm 24 now, and I'm not one of "them" any more. By "them" I mean college students. They have high school graduation years like '05 and '06. Mine is fully six years prior. They're young, wild and impulsive. I'm slightly less young, relatively grounded, and growing more and more cautious by the day. They're at the beginning of an amazing phase in life. I'm at the end of one, and it's time to say goodbye.

Each season I watch my friends scatter across the country and move on toward bigger and better things. Each season I'm saddened a little bit more that I'm not going with them, so I bury myself in double shifts at whatever restaurant I'm working at that year and try to pretend like it's not happening. Each time I find it harder and harder to justify my still being here. Each time I have to reconstruct a social circle that consists of fellow servers, most of whom are still in college, I find that I fit in a little less. For them, this is just a job while they're in school. Waiting tables is just spending cash to fund their partying. For me, it's getting dangerously close to a career. Each year it's a step closer to being the old guy who thinks he's cool with the young kids, but really is just a walking joke. They'll say things like, "Don't get me wrong, he's a nice guy, but why is he still waiting tables at (insert age here)? Move on with your life, you're not in college any more..." God forbid I should become that guy. Actually, let God rest. I'll forbid it myself.

Not long ago I made a plan for myself, and each season I find my plan working more and more perfectly. I'm presently forced to remind myself that I didn't make a clean finish of college and move straight into grad school for a reason. That reason was precisely that I lacked the motivation to want to get on and do something with my life. I had no drive. I didn't give a shit about school any more, I didn't know what to do with my life, and I had absolutely no sense of urgency about any of it. I suspected that a year or so off to spend working a shitty job and watching people all around me move up in the world and out of Nebraska would burn me hotter and hotter each time. I never could have imagined how right I was. With each friend who "makes it", or at least takes a shot, I have a greater resent for the way I've lived my life until now. With each person who quits waiting tables and gets a real job, I realize how many opportunities I've squandered. Every time a friend of mine gets a part on a TV show or in a movie, I curse myself for being spineless enough to let the faculty bounce me from the acting department when even they weren't sure why they were doing it. The more that resentment grows, the more I let my growing hunger dictate the way I face the present and set up the future.

Each time an opportunity pops up for me, I realize it more. Every time a door opens for me, I really take notice. Every time I get a shot at something along the lines of what I really want from a seemingly obscure location, I wonder more and more if it can be mere coincidence. Each time somebody likes my stand-up set on comedy night, each time somebody tells me they like my voice, each time somebody expresses belief in me and tells me I'm right to want to pack it all up and move out to Chicago or L.A. to take my own shot at entertaining people, I listen with a more open mind. These people aren't blowing smoke at me. It's not like I asked them to say nice things about me, or anything at all. This is unsolicited feedback. Every time I ask for nothing and get everything I realize how stupid I was to expect everything and accept nothing for so many years. Now when I get a chance to develop my talents or prepare myself for whatever my future may be, I take it. Each time I think that something sucks and is a waste of my time, I seek out the upside and find the ways it actually benefits me. Each time I want to curl up and cry out of fear of the unknown, I force myself to take inventory of what I do know, and that knowledge assures me that regardless of what comes my way, I'm going to be just fine.

College is over. At first that terrified me, but the more I think about it, I get this funny sort of grin about it all. I'd be stupid to cling to a phase of life. It can't be done. Holding onto something that is moving unstoppably away from you can only tear you apart...but what if you get behind it and accept the path down which it takes you, regardless of how rough or smooth it may be? If you're following the flow of an unstoppable force through time and focusing on steering it rather than stopping it, wouldn't that make you unstoppable, too?