I am tired of life, but I’m not tired of living.
At first, life post-graduation felt like I had collided head on with a brick wall. The world I spent the past four years building — one filled with independence (to an extent) and new friendships and lectures I genuinely loved to listen to … most of the time — completely fell apart the second I walked across the stage at graduation. When I moved back home, it felt like I never left in the first place.
I was back in my childhood bedroom, hanging up posters and trinkets that used to decorate my college dorm above my twin-size bed at home. Tucking my Ball State alumni crewneck into a drawer right next to my senior sweats from Trinity, the same drawer they’d been sitting in since I became a Cardinal four years before and thought I left my “old” life behind me.
Contrary to what 18-year-old me used to believe, a college degree is not a one-way ticket out. Honestly, I don’t even know what (where?) “out” is, and I don’t think I ever really did.
My degree opened doors to more opportunities for me than I would’ve seen without one, and it set me up with my dream first job out of college, but I’ve also learned the life plan I thought I finalized five years ago is hardly a rough draft, and I learned that the hard way.
Maybe I set expectations that are too high for myself … maybe. But I’ve never fallen short of being an overachiever, and I like to blame that on my lack of athleticism or hobbies or a social life until I moved from Melrose to Muncie. I liked ballet and I loved cheerleading, but I loved nothing more than my straight-A report cards and the way they made Papa smile, so I made school my priority, and I loved it.
I loved learning and handwriting notes and being on a routine every day. I loved the satisfaction I felt when I finally finished every assignment on my to-do list for the night or wrote an essay I was especially proud of, especially in my English classes.
I fell in love with words all over again every time Mrs. Buckley spent the 80-minute period interpreting three pages of whichever classic we were reading in I.B. English at the time. I discovered my passion for page layout sitting in Ms. Crnkovich’s classroom every day after school, putting together the entire yearbook with one (sometimes two) other editors and eating Geppetto’s pizza at our desktops.
Like most high schoolers, I took that time of my life for granted. Did I love it all the time? No, of course not. I spent most of my time outside of school doing school work until dinner, eating quickly with my family and then doing more school work until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.
But I didn’t hate it, and I came to love learning even more when I had a say in what I got to learn about. College felt more magical than Disney World at first — my own little bubble of educational fairytale wonderland in the world — and, for the most part, it remained magical until the very end.
I made friends I will have for life and learned all the lessons my family warned me I’d learn if I hung out with people who were meant to pass through. I led The Daily News through its centennial year, and my name is published next to “Editor-in-chief” in the special edition anniversary paper cataloged in university archives for however long history allows. Mimi may not have been sitting next to Papa in Worthen Arena on May 7, 2022, but she held my hand as I crossed the stage that day, and I know her smile is the reason the sun was shining so bright that afternoon. I know she’s proud of me.
I did everything I could possibly do to have the college experience and education I dreamed of having, and even I am proud of myself. I achieved every last item on my college bucket list and somehow made it out in four years (alive) with a triple major and one minor as an honors student, but I stopped ticking boxes shortly after the one next to “GRADUATE!!! :)”.
There were some bucket list items that came after that, “Get into grad school” and “Graduate (but with a job lined up)” being a few, but then my grad school plan fell apart, too, and while I love my job, it wasn’t enough to get me out of Melrose and into a world I could really make my own.
I think I am tired of life because I really don’t know how to make the world my own, and until I learn the skill of doing that, will I ever really know what it feels like to actually live?
A lot of the time, I wake up every morning — never without fail to hit snooze too many times on my alarm — and go through the same motions every day: Let dog outside. Brush teeth. Let dog inside. Work. Let dog outside. Work some more. Forget dog is outside. Hear dog barking and remember. Let dog back inside. Work even more. Dissociate and stare at bedroom walls until eyelids get too heavy. Go to sleep.
I cry about it a lot (Don’t act surprised. Everything I write is uncomfortably vulnerable.) It’s hard to admit to myself, but time has made clear that how I’m feeling may be because I was so used to the consistency and stability of “moving up” every year, and I didn’t realize how much I would miss that yearly shift and growth in my life until it stopped.
I’m afraid of not knowing what comes next for me. Embarrassingly — at least for me to admit — not having directions and a path to follow in life is one of the most stressful and terrifying things I have experienced, and it feels like I am only now starting to process how affected I am by the changes.
In all honesty, I am only now starting to accept that I set my expectations for myself too high to begin with.
I may have checked off every item on my college bucket list … education wise. The truth is, there are a lot of things I do regret about college, and it’s the one piece of my life I wish more than anything I could go back and relive (and maybe redo) all over again. I loved so much of my time in college that I’ve experienced what it feels like to grieve a past chapter of my life for the first time, and it’s both beautifully nostalgic and painfully gut-wrenching.
I miss my friends. I miss the luxury of having everything I needed within walking distance and the flexibility (and encouragement) to write the stories that inspired me the most, whatever they may be about. I miss grabbing a copy of the paper we slaved over the night before every Thursday morning on my way to Starbucks and flipping through all 16-plus pages together in the newsroom at our editorial board meetings. Ugh, I miss leading those meetings, but I miss nothing more than the people who were listening.
We all hear it while we’re living it: “These are the best years of your life, and they’ll be over before you know it. Take advantage of what you have now.” And I think it’s safe to say we all believe we listened while we were living it.
The writer I am at the very core of my entire being cries out in agony at what I’m about to say, but it’s unfortunately true that you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.
Isn’t it unfair that the experiences that supposedly make life worth living put us through the most excruciatingly bittersweet nostalgia one could possibly imagine? What do we do with our inability to stop missing the past when it’s taking away from completely living in and taking advantage of the present?
And what if you’re like me, and each heartstring tied to old memories tugs tighter every day while your fear of an unknown future weighs so heavy on your chest your lungs start to ache? How do you make the best of the present when the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Future choose your shoulders to settle on during the offseason and there’s no room left for the Ghost of Christmas Present at the table?
Time hasn’t taught me anything besides that, if I don’t make room for him myself, he won’t ever come.
I’ve spent my whole life regretting the way I lived my past and worrying about the way I will live my future. It’s time for me to give the present a chance.
Maybe I’ll let you know how it goes… or is that planning too far ahead?
I guess I’ll see you when I see you.
All my love,
Tay
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