I did something quite important this morning. I applied for graduation, I think. I say I think because I didn’t receive any confirmation of what I did, so come May I might not actually have graduated. We’ll see.

But this act, nevertheless, made me think a bit. It was over sixteen years ago that I first started school. Actually, if you count kindergarten I think it was seventeen. Since then I have had countless teachers, sat in many different chairs/desks, thousands of pages from hundreds of books on subjects that I couldn’t even begin to name half of. Since I started school, I learned to pack my own lunch, count, write, type, program, and drive.

I have had two concrete girlfriends and a handful that would be put into the gray area. I have met countless people, made a small portion of them my friends, and one of them my best friend.

I have doubled in size and tripled in weight despite there being a good chance that I eat less now than I did then. My hair has been short, it has been long and it has been all kinds of crazy. My feet now can be measured as an actual foot, give or take an inch. I no longer can see perfectly without some sort of prescribed correction.

Somehow, now when I look back at it all the things listed above, amongst others, are the things that mattered. Mentally, I realized this years ago. School wasn’t about learning who won foreign wars or how to speak different languages. It was about teaching myself to be a self sufficient person.

When I said that I figured this out years ago mentally, I meant it. I like to joke with people that I have had senioritis since first semester of junior year in high school. It really isn’t a joke. I was done with school.

Someone might ask me, upon revealing this, why I went to college. I don’t have that answer. I have some guesses, but no answer. I might have come to college to be more marketable for jobs (but keep in mind, I am an English major). I might have come to college to get away from home. Home is only 45 minutes away as the bike rides.

You see, for the past seven semesters I have started out strong, fighting off the senioritis. I want to do well and learn everything I can in each course I take. But then, about midway, my enthusiasm dwindles. I lose interest. It becomes more work to try and keep up with everything, to juggle work and homework, than it did at the beginning when the future looked bright. But senioritis sets in. It makes a full blown comeback and all the defenses I had built at the beginning of the semester are knocked away. School work doesn’t and hasn’t truly interested me since sophomore year of high school.

My mental checkout from school worries me. It only took ten years for me to get tried of learning. What will I do when I have the rest of my life to work? How will I cope with a life that bores me on a daily basis? Will I switch jobs every now and then just so I don’t have to get up to the same daily grind each day? Or will I stick with the job that I have for as long as I can, but hate every minute of it. Right now, I live for the weekend. But eventually I will get too old for weekends. I will have a house and chores to do to keep that house in shape. My weekends will result in more work for me and there won’t be anything to look forward to.

Who else has checked out already? Drop me a line and we can set up some plans to keep our lives interesting, I already have an idea in mind but I need someone to help me. One word: elope.