You Mean the Time to Grow Up is Here?

It is no longer high school and things are slowly beginning to change. As in, I can tell that there is just a different feeling about life in general between high school and having since graduated. Life is no longer about going to the dance, or what drama will happen next, who will "fall in love," how cool this person is or how much you just do nothing, because that's all you really want to do.

In high school, things just seemed  to have a sense of ease about them. In a way, there was nothing to worry about. We still fully lived at home. Parents paid for food, the house, cleaning supplies, school supplies, everything in the house, sports equipment and many other things. Either your parents drove you around or you drove their car 'cause you don't have one of your own. You had rules that you had to obey while living at home, though they were more lax than what they were in previous high school years. You didn't have to pay bills, except your phone bill which you just gave the money to your parents. Essentially, everything was simple. It was easy. School. Work/Homework. Tons of time for friends. (Unless you were a crazy AP person and took every possible AP course available at KV.)

But now that we're out of high school, things seem to be a lot different. I live in residence and most of tuition and residence fees I had to pay. I had to get a student loan to pay for some of it. Sometimes I have to buy kleenex and small things that I need in my room. I buy food when I don't want to eat at the caf. Living in an apartment means that there's so many more things that you have to do. Buy groceries and other necessities. Pay for internet, phone and cable (if you have all three.) Make sure the rent gets paid on time. Clean the apartment (if you even do clean.) Get a student loan too. Make sure you have a job so you can pay for tuition and residence/an apartment. Manage to go to class, your job and get all of your work done (which is significantly more than what you did in high school for less class time.)

But those are just the physical and monetary differences. There's emotional differences too, and that's where the big difference comes in, or so I find. When someone breaks up, it is more than just a high school break up where the couple was doomed to end. There were solid emotions attached and hearts truly broken. The desperate attempt to find a job, because rent is due and you do not have the money for it. The search for really finding who you are as a human. The true realization that you are not a child anymore. Attempting to discover what in life gives you the truest passion to make you want to pursue it. The fear of failing a paper or exam, because it defines whether you graduate on time or not.

There's so many things to worry about, so many new things to discover and so many wonders to explore that it can be overwhelming. You just, don't know what to do with it some days and find yourself wanting to creep back to high school. But you pull yourself forward, because even though it's new and exciting, you know it's the right way for you to go to feel truly grown up.

I'm not a kid anymore, and it's starting to kick in.