======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ==== ======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ====
In my neck of the woods, we’ve been having more snow than I’d care to have. Normally, this wouldn’t be such an issue, besides the massive delays and people in Honda Accords careening off the road. So I took a different route home to avoid that mess, past my old fraternity row and boy, was it glorious. People were skiing, sledding on mattresses and most of all, drinking cheap shitty beer while having a great time.
This got me thinking: I graduated five years ago. When did that happen?
I distinctly remember being a newly initiated brother. Some out-of-town alumni came in for a visit to relive the glory days. We all know the story, “They just come back to break things and bang college girls.” With actual money in their pockets, it made it much easier. They regale the brothers with stories of offices, jobs and promises of internships or “putting in a good word.” What struck me most, as many can attest, is the statement, “Enjoy it while you can because one day it’ll be over.”
It’s easy to stay in the here and now without giving a second thought to the future. Five years, ten years, 20 years? Hell, the next month could have been 1,000 years from then. At that time, the only thing I looked forward to was Thursday, the unofficial start of the weekend. What bars, which parties, which girls will be where, you know the drill. The seasons didn’t typically matter, except for the dreaded summer when everyone did their goodbyes, favorite brothers and friends graduated with a last hurrah and I spent three months lugging golf bags for people that make enough money to buy a helicopter with straight up cash.
Many times, when I go back and look at pictures of my past self, it seems like it never happened. It’s more like watching a movie where you know what happens; it seems like it wasn’t even my life. Maybe it’s because I grew up a bit, I am much less of an asshole, I drink less or I have more things to do than time to do them, but I feel like life began for me in postgrad college and that everything before was some sort of story in a faraway land, a book or a movie where I know the story but I can’t quite place where I know this person.
I envy college students and really anyone that still enjoys the carefree lifestyle. Sure there are exceptions, but large in part, college was a giant meet and greet before the cruel world makes you pay the piper. All those beers you drank with fast metabolism have caught up with you and packed on a few pounds, the student loan offices don’t really care that you haven’t found a job yet and all those bills that come with the “freedom” of not having to live with 26 other dudes. Sometimes, I want to dig a hole in the ground and sleep for a few weeks because living for the weekend doesn’t really do it for me.
It is a humbling feeling knowing that I was fortunate enough to have so many great nights and wonderful memories. Remember as a freshman in high school, all the seniors looked like adults? As an upperclassman in college, the freshman looked like babies. Now, when I walk around campus or head to work, all the college kids look like babies. Seeing these kids walking to class, even when they play Frogger against my two tons of American steel SUV and jaywalk so I miss my light, it makes me yearn for a time that will never happen again. Even if I hit the Mega Millions and could do the Van Wilder route, there is nothing sadder than someone that doesn’t know their place.
Most of all, I envy those that don’t live where there is a large university, especially one where they went to college. It’s hard enough being constantly reminded that you aren’t really one of them. I remember thinking, “I’ll always be cool, and I won’t be the loser old dude.” I guess I was right, I don’t participate in Greek life, other than to go to meetings with the University for their latest Indiscretions so they don’t get kicked off campus. It’s a thankless job, as I’ve been told “I just don’t get it anymore” and when people tell me I’m “old” at 27, it makes me question my grip on reality.
I fully understand that all good things come to an end, don’t be sad it’s over smile because it happened and all that other shit. I’ll be honest, when St. Patrick’s Day rolls around with an unseasonably warm day, I’ll drive around remembering the great times I had, surrounded by scantily clad women, poor decisions and arson of couches. The one thing that’s always stuck with me when younger brothers or college students that challenge me to chug-offs (I don’t lose) in bars or those 18-year-old kids that think they are too cool for school (besides the fact I was raging while they still peed their bed) is: “What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be.” .
Image via YouTube
Respond
Madoff
I specialize in damage control, being the drunkest at any and all functions and social assassination. Always appreciate a strong gif game. Follow me on Twitter. Sometimes I put up cool stuff about golfing at the local dirt tracks.
@BLMInvestment
Wow, MI. This struck a chord deep inside my soul. I graduated 3 years ago come May, and that perfect, booze-soaked world seems ever farther away with every passing day. I had a couple drinks with one of my best college friends a few weeks ago. She still lives in our college town, as she wanted to prolong the college experience. We talked about how we only know 1-2 people still attending our alma mater, and we came to the realization that what we really miss is the people. I miss my friends-I miss drinking with them on the roof in the middle of the day. I miss studying late at the library with them while we bitched about our pompous TA. I miss stupid philosophical conversations back when we thought we had all the answers. I feel like a stranger when I stroll through my alma mater. We hang on to that perfect world as long as possible, but the time always comes to say goodbye.
I can’t “Nice work” this enough. It was having all of my best friends under the same roof in a life that promoted fun and building meaningful relationships quickly.
I feel your pain. I still live and work in my college town. People think I’m a grad student or PhD student but never undergrad anymore like when I first started. If you’re on twitter, hit me up. We got a good crew on the @’s
Maybe I’m alone, but I enjoy not being desperately poor most of the time.
I just got college flashbacks…then I realized I have to file my taxes. PGP.
Paying the Obama care penalty instead of getting insurance. #PGP
Kind of a bummer for a friday.
“Even if I hit the Mega Millions and could do the Van Wilder route, there is nothing sadder than someone that doesn’t know their place.”
This is so true.
That part really killed me. I’m young enough to where I could pass as a college student if I wanted to, but I simply no longer belong. At 25 I am old enough to be called ‘an old guy’ by obnoxious 19 and 20 year olds. Just yesterday I was that obnoxious underclassman. There’s nothing I’d love more to go back to those days, but I can’t.
Well this hit incredibly close to home.
I can’t wait for Founder’s Day.
Sometimes I feel like I’m still a stupid college kid- all care-free and chill and ready to party. Then I realize that I graduated 5 years ago, am married, have a mortgage, and am worried about whether I contribute enough to my 401k. Then it hits me how far I have come from my college self… And I start watching American Beauty and relating to Lester Leeman about wanting to party all day and have no responsibility. Life, man.
True stuff man I’m in the same boat.
I’m not sure how I feel about reading this right before I go to visit my fraternity…
My favorite education session back in my fraternity used a quote remarkably similar to your last sentence. Gave me chills.
That’s called the momento mori. I saw it in Italy in this place built with human bones. Just a reminder that we all live and we all die. There’s a great Smith’s song (Cemetery Gates) if that’s your thing that’s kinda about it. Check out the lyrics. I wish Morrissey wasn’t such an asshole.
Yeah ours was in a cemetery and using the words from a Templar ceremony that was said at the death of a grand master and the night before initiation of a knight.
Founder’s Day next weekend will be the first venture back in over 6 months…the flashback to my 6 years in my college town (4 undergrad, 2 postgrad) before moving hit me right in the feels.