This is my last Editorial. This is also my last week of college.
Four and a half years and many personalities later, I’m ready to leave. Many different kinds of heartbreak along with some extreme levels of happiness have ebbed and flowed over this time and I am pleased to be at the end of it. In fact, I have been waiting to be done with it for four out of those four and a half years. Four years and many upsets, tragedies, highs, lows and boyfriends later I am ready to sprint across that stage and snatch my diploma out of Dr. Brown’s hands… In April. Four months after I’m done with school. Ugh.
All I can think is “I’m done I’m done I’m done”.
And yet a month or so ago I found myself going oh no. My entire life, approximately 17 of the 22 years I’ve been alive, I have been a student. Papers, tests, quizzes, vocab, discussion posts. These things have made up my purpose for seventeen years. What am I to do with that? I was sat in Dr. Erin Penner’s class on a random Tuesday in October thinking to myself “Who is going to make me read things I don’t want to? How will I find things I like unwillingly? Who is going to tell me how I can improve my writing, academic or creative?” Suddenly life after college seemed daunting. Suddenly, despite having a job and friends and a place to live, I felt like I had no idea what my life was going to look like. What my life was supposed to look like.
This isn’t even remotely true of course. I know exactly what my life will look like for the next year. But the idea of my life never revolving around class times and assignments became scary for the first time. All of my wishing and waiting to be done with school vanished and was replaced with a very slow creeping feeling of non-existence. I am a student. My whole life my mother has told me that my main job was “student” and that was what I embodied. Although I wasn’t the best student throughout my academic career, I always knew that this was what I was.
Coming up on my last few days as a college student I have had to change this way of thinking about my life. I have always knew what I wanted to do for work. Since the age of 12 I’ve wanted to publish books. Maybe some of my own, but mostly other people’s. Explaining this is sometimes hard, but I’ve always been confident in that answer- and it hasn’t changed. Now I find myself in this weird in-between stage of going from what I’ve done for four years (childcare) and what I want to do (publishing). Although, I find I really enjoy being around kids and the thought of being a teacher has always been in the back of my mind. So, I’m continuing the teaching for a little bit until I can weasel my way into what I want for the rest of life.
The rest of life. That statement is daunting, and yet so exciting. I’ve always been someone who has wanted to grow up fast. I wanted to have the freedom of having a car and a liscence since I was 10, I wanted a job to buy the things I’ve wanted since I was 13 and I’ve wanted to be done with school since I started it. But now at the very end of the finish line, I’m confused as to why I wanted it over so fast.
Now, this may be a slight lie. I know exactly why I found myself hating college and why I want to be home for good. I wish I could change the way a lot of things happened. But the bottom line is that everything that has happened to me cannot be undone. It cannot be changed, reversed or talked through. If you know me, you know why I look like I haven’t gotten much sleep a lot of the time, which is good enough for me.
Graduating isn’t about knowing what you want to do with your life, although this seems to be the question every single person asks you when the time comes. I know exactly what I want, and I know (roughly) how to get there. I don’t need advice on my career. I need advice on how to come to terms with the fact that I will never submit a paper again. I will never be handed 20 pages to read by Dr. Strait and dread every second of it but end up enjoying it in the end. I will never have to do academic things ever again.
This scares me.
I love to learn, read new things, explore new ideas and get feedback from a professor about poetry. I am beyond capable of doing these things once that last day of classes hits. Yet it feels like I will never do them again. Is this because I know that I need that push from someone outside of my head? Maybe. Do I think I’ll ever go back to school? Maybe way down the line, not anywhere near where I am in life right now.
In case I lost you, I’m writing my last editorial on my last week of classes before my last Review launch party and last FNL. And that’s good, but it scares me to know that I won’t be bossed around by the professors that I love anymore. And although that sounds like I’m being mean, I promise I’m not.
I tease them way too often. I hope they’ll miss that.
Graduation death
This is my last Editorial. This is also my last week of college.
Four and a half years and many personalities later, I’m ready to leave. Many different kinds of heartbreak along with some extreme levels of happiness have ebbed and flowed over this time and I am pleased to be at the end of it. In fact, I have been waiting to be done with it for four out of those four and a half years. Four years and many upsets, tragedies, highs, lows and boyfriends later I am ready to sprint across that stage and snatch my diploma out of Dr. Brown’s hands… In April. Four months after I’m done with school. Ugh.
All I can think is “I’m done I’m done I’m done”.
And yet a month or so ago I found myself going oh no. My entire life, approximately 17 of the 22 years I’ve been alive, I have been a student. Papers, tests, quizzes, vocab, discussion posts. These things have made up my purpose for seventeen years. What am I to do with that? I was sat in Dr. Erin Penner’s class on a random Tuesday in October thinking to myself “Who is going to make me read things I don’t want to? How will I find things I like unwillingly? Who is going to tell me how I can improve my writing, academic or creative?” Suddenly life after college seemed daunting. Suddenly, despite having a job and friends and a place to live, I felt like I had no idea what my life was going to look like. What my life was supposed to look like.
This isn’t even remotely true of course. I know exactly what my life will look like for the next year. But the idea of my life never revolving around class times and assignments became scary for the first time. All of my wishing and waiting to be done with school vanished and was replaced with a very slow creeping feeling of non-existence. I am a student. My whole life my mother has told me that my main job was “student” and that was what I embodied. Although I wasn’t the best student throughout my academic career, I always knew that this was what I was.
Coming up on my last few days as a college student I have had to change this way of thinking about my life. I have always knew what I wanted to do for work. Since the age of 12 I’ve wanted to publish books. Maybe some of my own, but mostly other people’s. Explaining this is sometimes hard, but I’ve always been confident in that answer- and it hasn’t changed. Now I find myself in this weird in-between stage of going from what I’ve done for four years (childcare) and what I want to do (publishing). Although, I find I really enjoy being around kids and the thought of being a teacher has always been in the back of my mind. So, I’m continuing the teaching for a little bit until I can weasel my way into what I want for the rest of life.
The rest of life. That statement is daunting, and yet so exciting. I’ve always been someone who has wanted to grow up fast. I wanted to have the freedom of having a car and a liscence since I was 10, I wanted a job to buy the things I’ve wanted since I was 13 and I’ve wanted to be done with school since I started it. But now at the very end of the finish line, I’m confused as to why I wanted it over so fast.
Now, this may be a slight lie. I know exactly why I found myself hating college and why I want to be home for good. I wish I could change the way a lot of things happened. But the bottom line is that everything that has happened to me cannot be undone. It cannot be changed, reversed or talked through. If you know me, you know why I look like I haven’t gotten much sleep a lot of the time, which is good enough for me.
Graduating isn’t about knowing what you want to do with your life, although this seems to be the question every single person asks you when the time comes. I know exactly what I want, and I know (roughly) how to get there. I don’t need advice on my career. I need advice on how to come to terms with the fact that I will never submit a paper again. I will never be handed 20 pages to read by Dr. Strait and dread every second of it but end up enjoying it in the end. I will never have to do academic things ever again.
This scares me.
I love to learn, read new things, explore new ideas and get feedback from a professor about poetry. I am beyond capable of doing these things once that last day of classes hits. Yet it feels like I will never do them again. Is this because I know that I need that push from someone outside of my head? Maybe. Do I think I’ll ever go back to school? Maybe way down the line, not anywhere near where I am in life right now.
In case I lost you, I’m writing my last editorial on my last week of classes before my last Review launch party and last FNL. And that’s good, but it scares me to know that I won’t be bossed around by the professors that I love anymore. And although that sounds like I’m being mean, I promise I’m not.
I tease them way too often. I hope they’ll miss that.