Pull It Together

As I’ve written before, I am careening into adulthood like a car that wants to make a left turn and has totally misjudged the speed and distance of other vehicles.

I was particularly struck by my own impending adulthood today in several separate instances. I went on DegreeWorks, our system for planning your progress towards your degree, and realized that not only am I categorized as a Junior but also that it was going to be somewhat difficult to stretch my remaining class requirements over more than three semesters. I grabbed my laptop and made a long and loud inhaling sound, like the kind my mom makes when I make a risky driving maneuver (driving metaphors are all over this post today). Accordingly, I finalized my plans to double major and added a specialization, because there is no way I am ready for the adult world and I’m sure as hell not going a year early.

One of my friends, Emily Ferons, really has her life together (most of the time). Today, I was sitting on her bed, invading her personal space and generally making a nuisance of myself, as usual, when she told me she was applying for summer internships. I replied, “Emily!!!!!!!!! We! Just! Got! Back! To! School!!!!!!!” She looked up at me (not over her glasses but it would’ve been if she was wearing glasses. Same vibe) and then resumed her applying. It was terrifying. To combat the impending sense of doom I felt creeping in, I made a resume. Are any of my experiences particularly relevant to the jobs I will be pursing? No. Is it in the correct format? Yes. You win some, you lose some.

At heart, I’m just one of those guys who changes their major 5 times so they can stay in school for 8 years and graduate with a General Studies degree. Those are my people. I just accidentally get really motivated sometimes, like when I took all those AP classes in high school, which seemed like it was going to be really awesome– and it mostly was. I got to skip all the really boring and somewhat shoddy gen-eds, which was cool, but now I’m trying to find ways to prolong the good ole days before I let corporate America relentlessly juice me like a prune. This accidental motivation happens to me a lot, and I think it’s because I don’t tell myself no enough. I’m like an out of control child that no one is putting on a backpack/ leash. “I’m probably qualified to do everythiiiiinnnnnggg” would be the chorus to my personal anthem and the other lyrics would be, “Lawyer, realtor, professor, writer, politician, psychologist– I have no direction.” Notice I did not list songwriter. The only other people who are allowed to list that many things they want to do are six, and also probably just ate 30 Jolly Ranchers.

Right now I live in super adulthood purgatory, where everything I buy is pink and I haven’t prepared a meal for myself in six weeks and we have security guards downstairs at night. I don’t know how our ancestors did it. At my age, they hunted and gathered and farmed and whatever and I made a trip to Jimmy John’s the other day, which is a block over (I took my car), and felt personally stressed and relieved when it was over. These are not the emotions of someone who could possibly graduate next year. And yet, I’m not even the most infantile person I know. Which is concerning. We should be SO concerned about that. I should be in the like second percentile of adulthood traits for my age. That would be comforting, not for me personally, but for humanity and the future of society. This is me, the perennial benchwarmer of the team in the race to adulthood, heckling my teammates loudly from the bench: pull it together.

I promise to never leave you hanging for a month again xoxo,

Megan

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