Did I really go to college???

 I almost cried at work yesterday, and it wasn't because of my boss or a rude client. It was because I got a text message from my best friend stating “The car’s loaded…and I’m in tears.”
       After living together for the better part of 4 years, my best friend and I parted ways, and she left the city to move home; it’s just the latest in a long string of goodbyes I've been saying since graduating college 2 months ago.
     I suppose the weirdest thing about college is that you never really believe that it’s going to end. You see your older friends graduate and talk about post-grad life, but you never really understand what’s so peculiar about it until you’re there yourself. It’s this feeling of being left out, especially if you’re like me, with plenty of friends still in school. They’re talking about the drama, the new professor whom no one’s really sure about whether or not they should joke around with, the new policies that are being put into place…and you’re standing there, with nothing to do but listen and grumble about your job when asked about your life.
     In a lot of ways, college feels like a detailed, long-form lucid dream. I know that it happened- I’ve got the debt and degrees to prove it- but I also don’t understand how 4 years can be gone before you have a second to even stop and realize it. Maybe it doesn't feel quite real because you leave college as a vastly different version of yourself from when you started.
      It’s not that I don’t want to work- I am ecstatic about all of the possible different ways my career could go- but I just don’t feel ready. At 22 years old, you really think you should be paying me a “salary”? I have irrational moments of spontaneity that make me want to bleach my hair, get a hoard of tattoos, and move to Seattle to pursue my “budding” music career  (and by budding, I mean that my roommate, mom, and neighbors are my biggest fans). Why on God’s green earth do you think I am capable of sitting at this desk for 5 days a week? Statistically speaking, I’m more likely to just stop showing up for work because I've decided to go on a road trip with my sister and because living in the adult world when you don’t feel like an adult is f@#*ing SCARY. And people tell you it can be a little scary or weird after you graduate but WHY DIDN'T I LISTEN?
       I think I need to end this post soon or else I’ll just go into anxiety mode and start stress-cleaning my apartment. What I’m saying here is simple, really: there is nothing you can do to prepare yourself for the inescapable awkwardness of post-grad life. Friends will move away, you might move away, and you might find yourself in a job that was not your first choice. And it’s scary and odd and you wonder how you got to that point in the first place, but one day you realize and start to accept the fact that everything is temporary.