Saturday, January 29, 2011

Happy Birthday To Me. (Reflections of a Life Senior)

Seriously, it's my birthday today. I'm 26. I've been musing on this post for a few weeks when I was finally struck by inspiration in the bath tub. Very Archimedes of me.



Up until college graduation, for most of us, life is broken into nice, neat four year chunks. We even use the same names across those sets of four years to denote progress therein (Frosh, Sophomore, Junior, Senior). So, now, I'm a senior again. Except that in June there won't be any Pomp and Circumstance. Instead it'll just be another 36 or so years of doing the same thing...

These are some of my scattershot thoughts on the past four years. It's less profound than I'd hoped, but then, life's just about faking it with confidence...

The first year out was fun and scary to no end. I learned more in that one year about myself, the world, astronomy, etc then in most of the rest of my life before then. After that, though, things slowed way down. It almost became routine. Which was scary, very scary.

Which leads me to fears. I'm not getting any younger, I'm not getting any more fit and I'm slowly progressing in a career. But that's now what life's about. I want a family, I want kids, the prospect of which gives me pause. I struggle to keep my own life in order, how am I going to be in charge of others' lives too?

I've learned it's not about knowing what's right, or how to get to the answer, it's just about saying you got it covered and then running to your office and figuring shit out. This confidence has gotten me in to binds at work and in life but, I'm happy with it all for now.

So, I'm about to have a party thrown for me so I'd better get cleaning. Maybe tonight I'll put up my first drunk post. Thanks for having me on The Blog, gents. Have a drink tonight for me.

C.A.W.

3 comments:

  1. David, we may never have been students at Carleton at the same time, but the stories I've heard and our brief encounters at alum meets and 40s has made me really wish that that weren't the case. Perhaps this blog can undo some of the lack of experiences we've had together. Happy 26th birthday, and welcome to the blog!
    Also, just go into editing mode, find the last post that used the cut, and copy the html into your post.

    ReplyDelete
  2. PRETTY FOR REAL FIRST POST!

    First off, Ditto to everything BK said.

    I agree with being scared of routine. Especially in the education sector - I can't imagine being at the same school, teaching the same class for really more than 5 years. I feel like I'd get bored.

    But hey, you're in your twenty-somethings! When I was like 14, I used to think that being twenty-something was the coolest thing in the world: you got a paycheck, can go drinking, and your sleeping with tons of hot babes (...I was fourteen.)

    Along the same lines, I'm gonna email you again sometime soon about your year in NH.

    GOOD 1ST POST!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Happy belated birthday. Here's how to create a jump break for future reference.

    ReplyDelete