Just yesterday, only twenty four hours ago, I was running around during recess playing tag on the playground, swinging back and forth on the swings in the backyard, and creating dances with my friends in a corner of the kitchen. At least it feels like it was all yesterday. I honestly couldn’t tell you when I went from being that little girl to the (supposed) adult that I am today. We grow up so naturally and at such a gradual pace that most of us can’t look back, point to a specific day, and say “that is the day when I grew up.”
As college students, we are all very aware of what’s relevant in our lives today, but we forget about all of those kid necessities that were once so pivotal. It’s hard to remember, because we dropped them somewhere along the way. Take my use of the internet for example: I used to type miniclip or clubpenguin into the google search bar immediately after opening a web browser, no exceptions. I can honestly say that neither of these websites are visited on my computer anymore. I definitely miss playing bubble trouble and racing other penguins down the ski trails, but those are no longer my main priorities.
When did my love for computer games get replaced by the pursuit of “more sophisticated” interests? It’s hard to pinpoint an exact time. We didn’t get to watch ourselves evolve and mature into adults, because we did it subconsciously. As a result, we don’t notice how or when we suddenly started to gain independence. We’re now able to retain knowledge faster, feel passion towards serious causes, develop our own thoughts and beliefs, and perform tasks independently of the help that we once needed. I would say that this new sense of independence takes root when we enter high school. High school is when we enter the real world of being official teenagers. It’s the time when we reach the next level of respect in the “young adult” ladder.
We develop new levels of maturity during our time in high school, but still only in the broadest sense. Maybe we take on leadership positions in different clubs and organizations. We learn what interests us through joining the hockey team, model debate, photography club, or anything else that your school may offer. It’s a time for everyone to figure out what their extracurricular activities will be and what subjects they prefer over others. Then, the college process opens up the next layer of the growing up process for high school students. As we apply to college during the second half of our high school career, we need the confidence and maturity to decide what school is the best fit for us. Furthermore, we are faced with attaining the maturity to accept the results of the college process with elegance and grace. Throughout the four years of high school, we make our way up the ladder, one step at a time, getting closer and closer to the status of a mature college student.
Today, we are those college students! We’re taking college courses and living on a college campus. It’s here, on campus, that we take growing up to the next tier of intensity, again without full awareness of doing so. It’s when we evaluate those clubs and extracurriculars from high school and narrow them down to the very few that are truly important and dear to us. It’s when hobbies turn into real life passions and pursuits. It’s when we design our own schedules instead of having classes assigned to us. It’s when we learn to explain our personal traditions and beliefs to those around us, making them more real and concrete to us.
So here we are, standing up for what we believe in, participating in activities that we love, attending events that interest us, and living independent lives. How we got here will always be a mystery, but we did. Does it still feel like yesterday that I was on the swings in that playground? Yes. I think it always will. That being said, I think we all recognize that we’re no longer those little kids and before we know it, the college step will be over too and we’ll be off to that thing they always talk about, I think they call it “The Real World”?
