Four Years
Today marks the four-year anniversary of my graduation from Austin College. I’ve now spent as many years in the real world as I spent in college. In my morose moments I like to refer to the 14th of May 2000 as Black Sunday, but when I reflect on the order of things I recognise that it’s necessary to move on in life: one cannot be a student forever, or indeed remain in any state for too long a time.
But man was college fun. I was surrounded by friends & familiar faces (and pretty girls—Texas, quite frankly, rocks in that department). There were parties all the time. Twenty dollars was a lot of money, capable of securing anything one’s heart might have desired. My major concern was writing papers, which is easy once one has discovered the key. I had no mortgage, no rent, no gas, electric or light bills. Granted, I was racking up student-loan debt—but I didn’t think about it, and thus it might as well have not existed.
But of course the day comes when one must grow up. Moving to the next stage of life is never pleasant: birth requires labour (is it any wonder the newly-born infant screams?); physical maturity requires adolescence; and mental maturation requires graduation, leaving one’s friends behind and a lot of hard work and sacrifice. In the adult world, one doesn’t have the option of just racking up some more loans. Twenty dollars is only a lot of money to spend on oneself; it’s nothing compared to what one must expend to stay alive. Time is a precious commodity, and there’s never enough in the day. Eventually one realises that there will never be enough time: some things will never get done, and an unpleasant triage must be performed as one prioritises one’s life.
It’s not all bad, of course: things which were beyond imagination in school are now possible (e.g. a year and a half ago, I dropped everything and headed to London when airfares dropped to nearly naught); one has more options, more freedoms; one contributes to the world, rather than merely taking from it.
And of course the process doesn’t stop. I suppose that the next step in life is marriage, which brings along its own sacrifices and joys, and then after that parenthood with its own complement, and eventually retirement, which if planned right should be the great playground of life. I imagine that the key to happiness is to appreciate the memory of past stages of life, enjoy the present and anticipate the future—but I’m too gloomy a soul for that.
When I was 21, I rather thought that I’d be somewhat further along in life at 25 than I actually am: making six figures; owning a home; married; driving a new car; surrounded by friends. As it is I’m still quite firmly in the five-figure range (although I’m in the respectable end thereof); I don’t own a house but I do own a condo; I’m single, and expect to remain so in the foreseeable future; my car is thirteen years old, the same I had my senior year of college; and I’m just beginning to form a circle of friends here in Denver. Still, life’s not too bad: I manage to sock away about 20% of my salary, and so I have the expectation of a pleasant retirement in my dwindling years (a good four dozen years from now); I have a respectable job; I serve in a modest capacity at church; my health is excellent; certainly, I (and just about anyone reading this, for that matter) am better off than almost anyone who has ever lived throughout all history.
But rare is the day I don’t wish, at least a little bit, that I had yet to cross that stage and receive my diploma.
