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stoked: turned 24 yesterday. work found out today and bought a cake, which was cool. met up with friends afterwards to get steak and beers. ?
not stoked: I feel like my youth is over, and I haven't done half the stuff I would have liked. ? When I look back, I always seem to have picked the safe route rather than taking a risk and following through with something I'm interested in. ? Feeling like a total pussy and stuck in a bind, because in my mind there isn't any more time to fool around and it's time to grow up. ?
Also the fact that I'm such a mopey, serious cunt at times.
Although I'm 20, I feel the same way. My youth was gone when I got a job second semester of my senior year in high school. Worked full time after school and hardly got the weekends off. The two years I worked there I maybe got 5 weekends off. So my social life went to shit, I missed out on so many skate trips with friends. And going to college, like Hercules Rockefeller said, takes away a lot of time from doing things. If it wasn't for college, some friends and I were planning a big trip around Europe, taking the train, staying at hostels, basically living cheaply for a month or two around Europe.
I also took the easy route too, I took very little chances. I just don't want to be broke and put college on hold, and I don't want to live with my parents forever and work a shit job.
i've felt this before, even this AM while driving to school i quickly thought "wow, what a hassle... working again would be good..." but then i remembered that while i was working i had been miserable about not being in school!!!
i put college completion on hold for about 5 years (i'm 25) and went back this year. It has been the best thing i have done for myself in a while.
While out of school i traveled, partied, wrote, worked, and didn't learn as much as i hoped to- shit was fairly rote. Now that i'm back, i see that i've got more opportunities than i could ever have had while out of school- new ideas, people to write with, greater tax refund (hah), higher sense of worth/accomplishment, now that i'm older i get more grant money too and have greater incentive to learn more/work harder.
granted, i didn't want to be in school when i was 20-24, and i probably wouldn't have gone back this year if my great lady friend didn't force me to enroll in the right classes, but fuck, school is a good thing. If Europe is in your heart, go over summer break.
follow your heart, dudes, school and work can both either wait or be had at any time. Youth, or lack of serious responsibilities, isn't until you want to be a good parent.
happy bday by the way