I have this desire to take a stroll through my old college. It is in the city, only a bus and subway ride away. I want to look through the windows, browse through the library, stretch out on the couches, and walk from the East Building to the West Building to the North Building, all of which are neatly connected by long hallways. I want to see the students that go there.
College seems like another lifetime ago. A time when my life consisted of only me, my mom, dad, and younger brother. A life of attending school and majoring in a area that did not really interest me or spark my passion. A life of the unknown future. Most of all, a life without romantic love.
I tell M. that these were the things I got out of the college experience :
-A bachelor's degree with honors.
-Knowledge in many types of subjects and areas.
-An assortment of truly fun and engaging classes.
-Several really great professors.
-Three internships, though I hardly learned anything...my fault really. However, I met wonderful people during all the internships. The staff at all three were terrific.
-The incentive to actually go and see two Broadway shows for a theater class. My mom and I went and saw Les Miserables and Miss Saigon. Both were wonderful and beautiful.
-A sheltered life...I went to school and came back home. Period. I wanted to be a social butterfly...hell...a social caterpillar would have been nice...but I was too shy. I am outgoing with my friends...I can be a chatterbox...but at the same time I never went out with them to social places. I only saw them for short lengths of time at school.
-Stress from studying, writing papers, oral presentations, internships.
-Stress from wanting to have the "REAL" college experience, but not making any effort to grasp it.
-That is IT.
I haven't mentioned another thing I got from college. I consider it the "latent" period...the time when I was in my cocoon waiting patiently and unknowlingly to become a glorious butterfly. College was my cocoon, not so much an educational cocoon, but moreso, a romantic love cocoon...it was as if I was WAITING for four long years JUST TO MEET MY M. And I did meet him. It was in April of my senior year that I first met M. in an AOL music chatroom. And from that fateful (or lucky...or BOTH) day onward...I burst out of my cocoon and transformed into the person I am today...ME.
And that desire to just walk through my school is simply to reminisce...to relive the memory of my past life...a life I am so happy to have had but more glad to have left behind...for a life that is a million times more passionate, exciting, loving, and fulfilling.