Sage's Stray Thoughts Episode 9
And we back, and we back....
This morning, at 8:36 A.M., I turned 27 years old. If I'm being completely, utterly truthful with myself--I feel like I finally qualify to make the decisions of an 18 year old. My emotional, social, and overall mental maturity levels have finally evened out to what I think someone in his late teens/early 20's should be like. What I'm saying is that "oh god people are going to expect me to act like a thirty year old soon", and I have NO IDEA HOW TO DO THAT.
Potentially it may simply be that I'm just "behind" everyone else. As my super-senior year's first half starts to gear down, it certainly feels that way. I've got friends with masters degrees, some who've gotten married, others with children, all of them with careers, and it definitely feels like I should be there too. That I'm just behind in a way that I shouldn't be.
....But. At the same time, I've spent my entire college career watching people three and four years my junior make the same kind of stupid mistakes I made at their age, and mature along the lines that I did. So perhaps the problem is society expects far too much from young adults. Because while there are some exceptions to every rule..most of you are stupid. Don't take it hard. I was stupid then. My friends were too. They grew out of it, I grew out of it, and so will you. But I think way too much importance is placed on a student's first few post high-school graduation years when they really don't know who they are yet. Just a thought.
As far as my birthday...it wasn't anything special. I spent the night before at my friends' apartment, where I couldn't sleep worth a shit so I stayed up all night. I came home for an all-too-brief nap and then returned to their apartment to play video games and shoot the shit. I'm sitting here now, waiting on the clock to strike 12, floating between exhaustion and being wide-awake.
Every new birthday causes me to look back to my older ones, comparing them all to see which were better than the others. My last year's was quite the treat. Though I had class for once, I skipped most of them to wander campus, spending time with friends and acquaintances on campus instead. After school I came home and enjoyed a peaceful nap before going back out to meet my friends for a late dinner. The whole day I felt myself embraced by a constant state of serenity. While turning twenty five left me crushed under the weight of being a quarter-century old, becoming 26 was distinctly different--my friends were still in town to celebrate, and the lack of work that comes with the time between Thanksgiving break and finals allowed me to spend my time calmly reflecting on my life.
Anyway, enough of that shit.
My 26th year was...decidedly uneventful, except in all the ways it wasn't. I started the year by deciding to take my writing more seriously...as I always do. But this time it wasn't a joke. I was blessed with the opportunity to do volunteer work for Bleeding Cool, one of the biggest websites for English comics there is. (And also a site that I've been a pretty faithful reader of since it's inception years ago.)
Unfortunately, not everything about a year can be great. One of the slightly upsetting things about not being terribly close with one's family is that it causes you to build a family when and where you can. For me, a person who built a family out of the countless friends I've made at college, it's perplexing watching them graduate and move on. You want the best for them, but you're sad because it feels like you've lost a piece of your family forever.
Typically I've thrown a party every semester except this latest one--including this past Spring. The only difference was this Spring we only invited people we were personally friends with...and the party still had somewhere near two dozen people in attendance. Unfortunately, a large number of those people have moved on...which can get kind of depressing when you're still in the same spot you've been in all your life. Nonetheless, I wish all of them only the greatest success in whatever they choose to do.
I also learned my limitations this year, as I took on duties for the amazing people at Tokusatsu Network...then quickly learned what time constraints can do to a person writing for three different websites while also attending school. Though my time there was all too short, it was a great opportunity and I hope I can apply what I learned there to future endeavors.
So what's next? Well, hopefully I can become published as a fiction writer. And ideally I graduate from college in May and can find a job where I get paid to do the things I love. I pray for the wisdom to become a clever enough person that I'm worth those opportunities.
This morning, at 8:36 A.M., I turned 27 years old. If I'm being completely, utterly truthful with myself--I feel like I finally qualify to make the decisions of an 18 year old. My emotional, social, and overall mental maturity levels have finally evened out to what I think someone in his late teens/early 20's should be like. What I'm saying is that "oh god people are going to expect me to act like a thirty year old soon", and I have NO IDEA HOW TO DO THAT.
Potentially it may simply be that I'm just "behind" everyone else. As my super-senior year's first half starts to gear down, it certainly feels that way. I've got friends with masters degrees, some who've gotten married, others with children, all of them with careers, and it definitely feels like I should be there too. That I'm just behind in a way that I shouldn't be.
....But. At the same time, I've spent my entire college career watching people three and four years my junior make the same kind of stupid mistakes I made at their age, and mature along the lines that I did. So perhaps the problem is society expects far too much from young adults. Because while there are some exceptions to every rule..most of you are stupid. Don't take it hard. I was stupid then. My friends were too. They grew out of it, I grew out of it, and so will you. But I think way too much importance is placed on a student's first few post high-school graduation years when they really don't know who they are yet. Just a thought.
As far as my birthday...it wasn't anything special. I spent the night before at my friends' apartment, where I couldn't sleep worth a shit so I stayed up all night. I came home for an all-too-brief nap and then returned to their apartment to play video games and shoot the shit. I'm sitting here now, waiting on the clock to strike 12, floating between exhaustion and being wide-awake.
Every new birthday causes me to look back to my older ones, comparing them all to see which were better than the others. My last year's was quite the treat. Though I had class for once, I skipped most of them to wander campus, spending time with friends and acquaintances on campus instead. After school I came home and enjoyed a peaceful nap before going back out to meet my friends for a late dinner. The whole day I felt myself embraced by a constant state of serenity. While turning twenty five left me crushed under the weight of being a quarter-century old, becoming 26 was distinctly different--my friends were still in town to celebrate, and the lack of work that comes with the time between Thanksgiving break and finals allowed me to spend my time calmly reflecting on my life.
Anyway, enough of that shit.
My 26th year was...decidedly uneventful, except in all the ways it wasn't. I started the year by deciding to take my writing more seriously...as I always do. But this time it wasn't a joke. I was blessed with the opportunity to do volunteer work for Bleeding Cool, one of the biggest websites for English comics there is. (And also a site that I've been a pretty faithful reader of since it's inception years ago.)
Unfortunately, not everything about a year can be great. One of the slightly upsetting things about not being terribly close with one's family is that it causes you to build a family when and where you can. For me, a person who built a family out of the countless friends I've made at college, it's perplexing watching them graduate and move on. You want the best for them, but you're sad because it feels like you've lost a piece of your family forever.
Typically I've thrown a party every semester except this latest one--including this past Spring. The only difference was this Spring we only invited people we were personally friends with...and the party still had somewhere near two dozen people in attendance. Unfortunately, a large number of those people have moved on...which can get kind of depressing when you're still in the same spot you've been in all your life. Nonetheless, I wish all of them only the greatest success in whatever they choose to do.
I also learned my limitations this year, as I took on duties for the amazing people at Tokusatsu Network...then quickly learned what time constraints can do to a person writing for three different websites while also attending school. Though my time there was all too short, it was a great opportunity and I hope I can apply what I learned there to future endeavors.
So what's next? Well, hopefully I can become published as a fiction writer. And ideally I graduate from college in May and can find a job where I get paid to do the things I love. I pray for the wisdom to become a clever enough person that I'm worth those opportunities.
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