I'M NOT AN ADULT--YOU'RE AN ADULT

Well, my college diploma finally arrived. If it wasn't official before, it's official: I am a college graduate. Although I'm in my 4th week at my first full-time job, it doesn't seem possible. How am I really not returning to campus the day after Labor Day?

I watched this amazing video by a Priest the other day that was talking about times of transition. He said that people who just graduated college are in this state of transition and they don't quite know how to handle it, but that it was okay because it was something that you've never had to do before.

Let me repeat that: This is something you've never had to do before. It's okay to be afraid. It's okay to admit that you don't know what you're doing.

And I love that. I have no idea what I'm doing. For the first 22 years of my life, I had someone else telling me what to do. My parents, my teachers, my coaches, my professors... they were all guiding me.

I always had a place that I had to be. There was structure. And now, I have to create my own structure.

Sure, now my job dictates my schedule for the most part. But for the first time, my schedule isn't laid out on a grid--filled with times I have to be to certain buildings or take exams. That terrifies me.

One of my younger cousins is heading to college in the fall, and she actually chose UW-Madison as well. So she's been asking me some questions about dorms, classes, etc. And there's a little twinge in my heart just thinking about it--because I am a little envious of her getting to go on this amazing roller-coaster of an adventure.

Yes, she will she have ups and downs. College wasn't all hanging out with your friends and eating pizza at 3 in the morning. It's a lot of hard work, and it's confusing time trying to figure out what comes next.

However, what comes next isn't nearly as exciting. I wish I could say that being an adult was everything I hoped and more. After all, I spent 22 years preparing for it. But to be honest, I would give anything to do four more years of that confusing crazy time, because I'm starting to feel homesick for it.

All that I have now to hang onto is that I'm heading toward making all those "dreams" I have come true. I'm clinging onto the fact that maybe all these overnight weekend shifts and nights spent alone will be worth it in the long run. I have to.

Maybe being an adult isn't everything I ever hoped it would be. Maybe it's naive to think that it still could be, but I want to stay naive enough to believe that someday it could be for as long as I can... because I still believe that one day everything I'm working toward could work out.

Until then? Well, you can find me sitting on the beach, sipping on something cold (that I probably overpaid for at Starbucks), denying that I am now boring officially an adult.