Back to School: Oh, Wait, Not for Me

Anyone who goes through college can certainly say they went to school for a long, long time. Looking at the numbers game, for myself that was 17 years from kindergarten through graduation this May at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Now, for the first August in so many moons, I wasn't gearing up for a return trip to the university (and many a wild, dubious party), wasn't grabbing some slick new threads from the store to pimp myself out for the girls (likely unsuccessfully), and wasn't headed to the local Wal-Mart with mom and pop to buy those notebooks (or if this were still the early/mid 90s, those trapper keepers). This year I sat on my couch with my computer, seeing old friends and random acquaintances updating their Facebook status with "Going back to the Hill!" (Chapel Hill, NC).... And I wasn't one of them.

It's an odd feeling, one most of you folks out there have gone through. It hasn't affected my attitude much, although perhaps I've been a little quirky of late as I adapt to the life change. (Note the quirky overuse of parenthesis above and, um, right now.) The funniest, or saddest, thing about it all is the irony. For many years I complained about the length of the schooling process, wondering when it would be over. This was particularly true before the greatness that was college. However, now that I'm finally out, I wouldn't mind at least one more year of debauchery or ridiculous, care-free fun. I'm not quite the loose cannon I once was. I have responsibility now. This, of course, is alarming.

Even outside the responsibility issue however, balling out at a house party - or even frat - one more time has its wicked appeal. Waking up and being on campus all day for a football game calls me back. Heck, even the novelty of going to class once more, either late and/or hungover, has a nostalgic allure. Where did those days go?

The last year of my life was the fastest ever. Now I'm out of school, in that "real world" people haven been yapping about. It's no more real to me, just different. Which is fine, I guess. No more pencils, no more books, no more pretty school girl's looks.

To reference Aldous Huxley - "It's a brave new world." But just because I may be ready for it doesn't mean I'm not ready to go back.

School kids - cherish your time!