If I Ever Start Referring To These As The Best Years Of My Life--Remind Me To Kill Myself

I love waking up in the morning with the prospect of an entire day all my own to do exactly nothing. No obligations, no responsibilities. I don’t even have to leave my room if I don’t feel like it. Yesterday was one of those days. I did nothing but sit around updating my Ipod, flipping through magazines, sitting on the computer and watching some really bad TV. In essence, I fulfilled the stereotype of a typical day in the life of a college student.

It annoys me, the way adults talk about this time in our lives as though we’re living in some utopia, as though nothing in our lives could possibly be difficult or stressful or painful. I can’t tell you how many times someone’s said to me "well just wait until you’re in the real world" or "stay in college for as long as you can, because there’s nothing fun beyond it." I always laugh a seemingly appropriate little laugh, and respond with "that’s what they tell me." The "they" is every other adult in the world who is somehow under the impression that my life is an ongoing orgy of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. All I have to do is go attend a few classes, write a few papers, answer a few calls at a job, and the rest of my time can be completely devoted to standing around a keg. I’m a college kid, so I must not have a care in the world.

Well, fuck you. I don’t know what kind of alternate universe you went to college in, but around here, I work pretty damn hard. It drives me crazy that the majority of adults can’t seem to give us any credit. Granted, I’m not having the "normal" college experience, whatever that is, but I’d say those of my friends who are, are still working their asses off. When was the last time one of these forty year olds tried to write a twenty page paper on a topic they knew, not to mention cared, absolutely nothing about? And not for a paycheck, or a potential opportunity to get ahead in their workplace for an even larger paycheck, but for the mere incentive of knowing that they are learning, knowing that they are furthering their education. It sounds grand and noble in theory, but let me tell you something, at 3 am on your fifteenth page about the civil war, you couldn’t give a flying fuck about whether or not this paper is making you smarter. If you’re anything like me, you begin dreaming of a time in your life when you’ll never have to think about anything irrelevant to your choice of occupation again. You just want it to be over.

The office I work in is not a 9 to 5 job for anyone. It can be stressful and demanding, and I’m not denying that people don’t work hard there, but it’s easier than school. It really is. I could potentially work there for the rest of my life (although it would be a very unhappy life for me), and my life would be virtually carefree. The truth is, I log in more hours each week at that place than most of the adults do, and during the school year, add four classes, and all the work for those classes, to the mix. There’s nothing waiting on the other side, huh? How about finally getting some free time? Unless they have small children to return home to, all of their lives look pretty easy from my standpoint. The monotony of each at that place would inevitably be my demise, but I could work there forever without ever having to apply my brain again. A job just seems so much easier than school.

Grown-ups look at us with that envious twinkle in their eye, longing for their youth. I can’t figure out if college was easier in their day or if they are remembering it through rose colored glasses, choosing to leave out the memories of that fifteenth page at 3 am, the seventy-two hours straight without sleep. They remember the parties and friendships and the rare Saturdays with nothing at all to do. I wonder if I’ll do the same, if I’ll perpetuate the idea that college is the best time of our lives. I really hope that’s not the case.

It’s not that I don’t have fun and enjoy life. I do. It’s just that I’m also working really hard towards a future so that the rest of my life will be better than it is now. Isn’t that the point? Don’t tell me that there’s nothing to look forward to on the other side of college, or I might as well drop out now. Out of school, out of life. Things better go up from here or this is all just one giant waste of time. I hope that I’m not forty longing to be twenty. Maybe in your college days you sat around with nothing to do, but I only get about a Saturday every three months to just do nothing, and I’d like to enjoy it without being placed into a stereotype of lazy college kids.

So let’s come to an agreement. Stop assuming my life is easy and I’ll stop assuming that you've wasted yours. I’m working my ass off. What did you ever do?