My creative quirks became embarrassing after I wanted to go by the name Fe* and a kid at school promptly asked "Fe*?! What kind of name is THAT?" (Upon retrospect, maybe not the most sensible name, but give me a break, I was in 3rd grade!)
My feministic approach with guys wavered after asking a boy to go to the movies with me and rejected me -- over AIM no less!
My time to get dressed doubled after getting questions of why I had purposely chosen to wear different colored socks.
Isn't that kind of a bummer?
Something else I made of these memories? I'm freaking scared to graduate college.
There, I said it.
All of the memories, the reminiscing, the nostalgia; they are all currently acting like a security blanket as I get closer and closer to moving my tassel from one side to another and making some version of this face to my mom:
I truly have no idea what I'm doing after college. I'm actually okay with not knowing what I am going to do. It's more that I'm nervous to enter this scary, eternal version of summer. The chant, "No more pencils, no more books! No more teachers' dirty looks!", was fine when it only pertained to 80 days of summer, but now it's applying to the rest of my life. The structure I've known for 17 years will be gone.
I may be working a 9 - 5 job every day, strategizing a brand's social media presence, or I could be living out of a suitcase as I tour with a Broadway show company. I'm not even freaked that those two careers are completely different from each other, I'm freaked about the one thing they have in common: it means that I will no longer feel like a kid. For some reason it feels like this serious ceremonial severing between childhood and adulthood -- quick, someone get Al Roker and the guy with the scissors who begins the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!
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| For the sticklers: Yes, I know his name is Robin Hall, and yes, I know he no longer cuts the ribbon. |
Completely separate from my winter break of nostalgia:
At the beginning of 2012, Ann Shoket -- the Editor-in-Chief of Seventeen Magazine challenged her twitter followers (via her assistant Berna) to choose one word to be their mantra for the year. That year I chose "action" and that was the same year I got my first internship with DoSomething.org. I've been choosing year mantras religiously ever since.
2012:
2013:
As if I could have planned it any better, my one word mantra for 2014 is FEARLESS. When I first chose this word I wanted to push myself, and face the post-grad unknown head first. But after this winter break, it is going to mean so much more. I want be true to myself. I want to be like fearless little ol' Fe*, with her mismatched socks and all.
xx
