When I first started college, I had no idea that it would go by so fast. Especially since High School felt like forever, and when that ended, it felt like I was saying goodbye to an entire world. Scratch that, an entire universe. Fast forwarding to now, with my junior year of college on the horizon, I find myself thinking, “How in the world did I get here?”
It feels almost unreal, in the sense that there’s no way I could have finished two years of college just like that! How did two years fly by in the blink of an eye? I can’t help but spit out stupid cliches when referring to the passage of time.
The kind of quotes you see on cheesy Pinterest boards, and the kind of advice old heads on the street give you. You know what I mean.
“Time flies when you’re having fun.”
“Life is short.”
“Don’t grow up too fast.”
“It’ll be here before you know it”.
But what do all these things mean? What is time, really? Who starts time? Who stops it? Does it ever stop? Why does time going forward mean I have to grow up in the process? What is growing up? What does growing up even mean? All these questions and more swarm my head like a bundle of buzzing bees.
My birthday is in the summer, June 27th to be exact. Which means I usually age after every school year. It’s been this way for as long as I can remember, well, at least for as long as I’ve been in school. Within the K-12 years I was always let out of school for the summer before my birthday rolled around. Which means I’ve never experienced one of those school birthdays, the kind where students pass out cupcakes and pizza to their classmates. I was always jealous of those kids who had school birthdays, but I’m getting a little off topic here.
It’s hard to think about time and not think about aging. Aging happens with time, and time tends to cause things to age. They’re the yin and yang of reality, and the driving force within our own mortality. I doubt any sentient being on this earth who is capable of self-reflection could live without thinking about their own mortality. Mostly because, in the voice of Rocket from Guardians of The Galaxy, “Everyone has dead people”.
Whether those who passed away in your life were of value to you or not, it’s important to understand the fundamentals of our existence. The big thing that’s assured to everyone is death. Every story has an ending, every movie rolls it’s credits, and after every play the actors take a bow. With that, this race we call life, has a finish line. And nobody is safe from that. I, myself, lost my father to colon cancer when I was 9. My only living grandmother died when I was 13. And currently, one of my two guinea pigs has a tumor that grows every day.
Her name is Honey, and I doubt this little fuzzy potato understands the situation at hand. Though, I try to find comfort that soon my father will be able to hold one of my guinea pigs. And I hope to be able to hold them both in my arms one day. Hopefully though, this TV show will have many more seasons to go before its finale.
Circling back to college, there will be an end to that too. I can’t believe I’m two years into my four year degree. Where did those years go? It almost felt like I jumped ahead in time. Though another cliche that’s resurfacing is that;
“Time flies when you’re having fun.”
I don’t know how I’ll feel once senior year comes to a close, or how I’ll even feel when my junior year is over. Nevertheless, I’ve genuinely enjoyed my time at Arcadia so far. I’m looking forward to making more memories with those I’ve come to know, I hope to continue to take advantage of the resources I’ve been lucky enough to obtain, and I’m definitely excited to continue to grow within my major.
I hope my dad and grandma are proud of the man I’m trying to become. I hope to be the first in my family with a college degree. As for my sickly guinea pig, I hope to feed her treats as much as I can, pet her as much as I can, love her as much as I can, until her story comes to an end too. And if you’ve ever lost someone, know that in a very morbid sense, you’re lucky you had someone you could love, so much so they were worth missing.
Don’t be scared of the time, and don’t be scared to age. It’s a privilege to grow up, and it’s a privilege to have enough time to figure out who you are, and what you want. Cherish that, do that, live that.
