Living 101

My building has been surrounded by Columbia University graduates and they parents for the last three days. It’s inducing nostalgia. I don’t mean that I’m made to reminisce about my own graduation (last May), but I hear talk of new beginnings and starting over. A clean slate, for some, can be refreshing. For others, it can bring about abounding fear of the unknown. Oooo … there’s nothing like change to freak out your local Republican.

Graduating is a lot like waking up in the morning. After so much horizontal time, it just feels good to remain in the reclining position. Changing that just fucks everything up. While I personally love the morning time, I have a hell of a time getting out of bed. (I also own a down comforter.) After so long with something, change is just terrifying.

I’m glad that I’m not graduating. I’m crazily comfortable at the moment. As a matter of fact, almost a year in the New York still hasn’t been enough to make me feel secure. I’m still carving out a place for me. I’m still coping without the familiarity of home. That’s exactly what life after college, or any long-term project, is like.

Men, like down comforters, offer us an unparalleled amount of comfort. In an uncertain world, who isn’t looking for security? How do the bumbling boys we date succeed at both soothing and sabotaging our search for comfy stability? As a graduate student, I have friends who have just begun the dating process. Others are grieving it. Still, some are becoming cynical about beginnings and the future. For what else is college if not to learn about the opposite sex (or, in my case, the same blasted one)?

If you’re in college, leaving college, contemplating college, or screwing a college, remember this: they can break our hearts, but they can’t take away our education.