Transitioning into Young-Adulthood and College
Some Truth about Transitioning into Young-Adulthood and College
Usually it’s one of two ways: graduating from High School gets intensified by turning 18, or, turning 18 gets intensified by graduating. All the kids are, like, yea, we out! Finally, what we’ve all been waiting for. Freedom! College. Do my own thing. No more being treated like a child. This is going to be sick!
At the same time, a whole lot of other stuff is going on under the surface for everybody. It can feel like one’s going to say it, but there’s sadness too, and worry. Loss. But everyone’s living so hard into the idea that it’s all awesome and looks great on Insta, that there’s no space to language or express the other side. You may feel like you’re weird, but really you may be the one person who’s prepared to feel it all out loud.
I remember finishing High School and everyone going off to college. It felt like we were all sailing over the edge of the world. Like there were no reference points anymore. College was this, sort of, blank space signified by 7 letters. I remember waving my best friend goodbye when he left for soccer pre-season in mid-August. We both cried. We had been everything best friends are for each other. Would our friendship last? Would it fade away? Who was I now he was headed towards his new world? What was my new world going to be? And the Summer before that day had been a vague retrospective of our lives, certainly of the last 4 years, and a rehearsal for this moment and others like it.
It is loss. Things are going to change. Some things will stay the same. You won’t know how until you live it. But you’re not weird. You’re meant to feel it. All of it. The sad as well as the happy. The worried as well as the pumped. It’s all Life. Feel it all. Don’t get lost in the down; don’t get carried away by the up. And you’re also about to gain. And you won’t know how until you live that too. It’s all out there just beyond the horizon of all you’ve known. And the world is round. You won’t fall off.
Some things they haven’t told you: where you’re headed isn’t so different than what you’ve known, and it doesn’t all happen in one day. You’re not going to be the only one that feels overwhelmed or disoriented. The only people who won’t have someone who showed them. It’s not about knowing everything, it’s about recognizing when you don’t know or need support and engaging the supporting people around you. And the adulthood thing does not (shocker), does not happen in a day. Many human cultures do adolescence in a period from a couple of weeks to a couple of years. In our culture it goes from age 11 or 12 to 25 to 30! It’s a crazy long road. And adulthood remains a decision we have to live into to make it stick. “Adult” is not just freedom to do whatever, “Adult” is freedom balanced by responsibility.
So, live into this time after all you’ve known so far and before everything that comes next. Your next stop is Young-Adulthood. Kidhood is not over. College may take a while to work your way into. You may meet the best people in the first weeks, who, in time, you’ll never really see again. The people you end up closest to may bug you at first. Don’t get spun-out by social media that will make it look like other people you know are having a better time than you. It’s all propaganda. Take your time. Figure out who you want to be. Try new things. Get your nerd on: meet people by doing things you love, that let you be the real you. The rest will sort itself out.
