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Volume CXXXIII, Number 5 |
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From the playground to college
KATIE HAYES
CONTRIBUTOR
These days, I wish I were six. College days of work, tests, choices, and decisions often leave me saying this to myself. When I was six, I didn't worry as much as I do now; in fact I don't think I worried at all. I find myself nostalgic for those non-worrying days of the first grade. But I must be reminded that worrying is just a minor detail, and that college is a lot like elementary school. Someday I will be nostalgic for college just like I am for first grade.
Every day at about noon, I look out my window and watch the school children playing on the playground. It doesn't take long for me to become lost in those happy screams, and absorbed by the giddy laughter that I fondly recall from my playground-playing days. I sometimes can picture myself hanging on the monkey bars, sliding down the fireman's pole, or jumping off of the swings in an attempt to fly the highest.
Then I am forced back into my reality of reading the philosophies of Aristotle and calculating problem sets. These days I wish I were six again. It would be so much easier to join the kids on the playground instead of reading theories and computating equations I can't comprehend. I am now beginning to understand what everyone meant by "enjoy your childhood while it lasts." I did enjoy it, but I'm still wishing it had lasted longer.
But then I fast-forward ten years and realize that someday I will look back and wish that these days lasted longer. People say to me now, "Enjoy college while it lasts," and despite my wishes for simpler days, I am trying my best.
I think that after every stage of one's life, one can't help but feel nostalgic for it. When my dad was in college, he initiated a swing club with some of his fraternity brothers. They met at the Longfellow swings every Wednesday night at the stroke of twelve, just to swing. They may claim to have just been college guys looking for something fun to do in the early hours of a school day, yet I can't help but think that it was a small reminder that they could still enjoy the simple things in life.
So enjoy it all. Live it up. As the senior class T-shirts say, "We're
here for a good time, not a long time." Make the most of it, and
like childhood, remember that it, unfortunately, doesn't last forever.
Maybe we should all create traditions for ourselves, albeit at the playground
or elsewhere, so every once in a while, when we're wishing we were six
again, we can pretend to be for a little while. Always come back to these
days, because soon they'll be just a memory, too.
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