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If one of you science people could do us all a favor and make a time machine, I would like to go back to freshman year of college. You see, freshman year was THE year. It was easy and you were naïve. There were no fucks to give but unlimited fucking to do. If you feel the weight of your 20s every morning when you wake up, then freshman year is for you.
The Naïvety
You went with anyone anywhere anytime. Oh, it’s 3 a.m. and your hallmates are going to some random’s off-campus house? Let’s go! Once, I walked out of my dorm only to hear my best friend screaming my name, sitting next to a hookah, and telling me to “hit it ’til it burns!” The base was filled with vodka instead of water and, until that point, I had always assumed smoking hookah was some mysterious and illegal thing. And let’s face it–if it wasn’t for the naïvety of freshman year, you probably wouldn’t know your best friend today. It’s always nice to find a silver lining out of something that produces so many date rapes.
The Easiness
Let’s all take a moment to remember “University Experience,” the biggest joke my tuition money went to. I experienced way more of my “university” outside of that class, typically on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. Ask me to write you a two or three page essay on that shit and I will hand you back an A+ novel that could be a New York Times bestseller when you finish grading it.
Lack Of Fucks To Give
Freshman year is the most irresponsible year of your adult life. You’ll take out as many student loans as you like, because it’s not like you will have to pay them back soon and when your grace period is finally over you’ll be rich (LOL)! In the meantime, you will drink yourself nearly to death and wind up puking all over the host’s couch, but it’s cool because he only paid $30 for it at Goodwill. Class? Oh, you mean that thing you’re supposed to do in the daylight hours? You’ll go eventually, you think. Just not today because it’s too beautiful or cold or windy or rainy or hot to walk the 60 whole feet from your dorm room to class. Also, Netflix.
Limitless Sexual Conquests
This is the complete opposite of my previous point, as you have many, many fucks to give. You have four whole years of fucks to give, and their names are freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior. You may also run into their cousins along the way, grad school and professional school. You have no regrets–yet. Everything, everyone, and every surface is all new to you. The last time you had a twin bed, you weren’t sexually active, but by the end of this year, you will be a twin XL pro.
The Feeling Of Being Young
I can no longer count on my appendages the number of times my mom has said to me, “Lindsay, you’re 23 years old. You have your whole life ahead of you.” MOM, YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. In her head, I am but a young child. In my head, I am due for a Chick-fil-A induced heart attack at any given moment. If Chick-fil-A doesn’t do me in, my aneurysm (a result of stress) is sure to finish me off, granted I make it past the surgery to remove my hernia. Freshman year is different. You feel in your heart that you are a grown and responsible adult, yet you don’t feel the repercussions of your acts. You don’t feel the hangovers for long–sometimes you don’t feel them at all. What bills are you paying? The only obligations you have are calling your parents to assure them that you’re not face down, ass up in a ditch somewhere. I miss feeling young and thinking I’m old. Instead, I’m feeling old and thinking I’m young. And my body lets me know it no longer appreciates it by way of three-day hangovers.
Respond
@lnsayers
@lnsayers
AH, the nostalgia hurts.
Good column but it made me feel like an old bastard. Speaking of that, yo daddy let you date?