The Age We Grew Up Wishing For

As a kid, I always dreamed about what it would be like to be... older. Not too old like my parents, but not young like my older sister. I wanted to be older, where you're still cool, but people are willing to take you seriously. Wrinkles hadn't formed yet, but maybe some kind of facial hair was surfacing above the upper lip.

For a long time, I didn't know when I would become that old. How would I find out I am having the time of my life? There was no way I could be like Patrick Swayze and last until the end of Dirty Dancing, only to reflect on the "greatest time of my life." 

So, where am I going with this?

This is the time. I am at the age I have always dreamed of being. 

I can walk to my friend's apartment and watch West Coast NBA games until "past my bedtime." In fact, I don't have a bedtime! I get to choose! No one can tell me otherwise.

I can decide when movie marathons are happening, which movies are on the docket, and how long they last. With the fourteen streaming accounts shared across five or six different people, the world of cinema is at my fingertips. 

Even in school, I contribute to the conversation. My professors take me seriously. They enjoy my work. I enjoy my work! I am the Great Value brand sponge ready to soak up all the knowledge in the classroom setting, but I'm no longer the "wide-eyed freshman" who doesn't know any better. I am the confident senior who has sewn his seeds and watched his plant of academic labor grow and grow.

But now, true adulthood is on the horizon. Do I want to grow up, be like Peter Pan, and stay this age forever? 

You may also be a soon-to-be-graduate reading this, thinking, "Man, he's right. I don't want to leave! I can't leave!" Or, you might be a little older, thinking, "Gosh, his college experience is way different from mine. Noah, there's injustice in the world. Income inequality, gun violence, political disarray, and you want to stay here?"

This is where the battle in my mind converges. I know my time is almost up. Loads of responsibility are showing at my doorstep, and it all sounds exciting, but is it worth it? 

Is it worth it? 

What could I tell my younger self? This is as great as it gets, kid. You're a snowball falling downhill, and there's a big, big rock that you can't escape. Student loans, taxes, bills, credit cards, and a life of work await me. Does that sound exciting to you? Should it? 

This is not a call to arms for all my adult friends. You don't need to shout, "It's not as bad as you think! It gets fun after a while!" I hear you.

More than anything, this is a public confession. I am terrified of the age to come.

Many questions swirl in my mind, and most revolve around money and where it will come from. Where will my friends go? How can I sustain a friendship from afar when my life will be thrown into a cubicle? So many great memories will begin to fade when I leave the people I made them with. 

I am at the age I dreamed of being. Is this the peak of it all, or the beginning of something more significant?

It's difficult to say, is it not? As I write this impassioned essay on remembrance and taking steps forward into the next chapter of life, I question how to conclude.  

But that could be it.

I don't have to worry about how the story ends. Why say this is the end of a chapter or an era when life continues to press on? Do I drastically change as a human once the label "College Graduate" attaches to my life's resume? It's like any birthday. "Do you feel older?" More often than not, the answer is no. 

Why do we succumb to the belief we become different people upon receiving the diploma? Because we believe there is nothing more significant than this. When you reach the pinnacle of the human social experience, the only way to go is down. 

So, I refuse to believe it. You can call it denial, but I call it progress. I refuse to say that this is the peak for me. There is so much left to be written in my life, and no good story reaches the height of action in the first fifty pages! That book doesn't sell. 

I may give myself a bedtime in the coming months and begin to watch what I eat, but there is so much to come. 

To my fellow graduates, this is not the end of something great or the beginning of something new. I began twenty-something years ago and will end sixty-something years from now. My younger self was wrong. Dirty Dancing was wrong. The culture that told us, "Our peak is here," is incorrect. The age I dreamed of being will never materialize as long as I live dreaming of more. The dreams will change and grow in sophistication, but I pray our dreams never fade.