What 'last' means.

So many people have spoken to me recently being like "Oh, this is your last semester! How do you feel?"

I just don't even know. How am I supposed to feel? Relieved, probably. Maybe sad. Excited? 

Maybe it's a combination of all of those things, but I think at this point I can't even wrap my head around the fact that I am on the tail end of something that has been so much a part of my life for the past 3.5 years. It's been my life. 

There is something about beginning and ending new phases in one's life that is entirely disorienting. It's even more disorienting because this is one of the last things that I will do that conventional society has a timeline for. That meaning, first you go to preschool, then elementary, junior high, high school, and directly into a 4-year college. Usually. And that's what I did. 

But after that, it's all free-range. Even grad school, if I am accepted, is still free-range. People go back to grad school at all ages, and there's no law that says it comes immediately after college is done. Nope. The young-adult cliff is approaching, and the yawning chasm of figure-out-your-life is next.

Thing is, I am trying not to make that such a big deal in my head. You hear that all the time, about how it's scary right after college. And I'm sure it will be. But recently, through friends I've made, through taking to people, and through really examining my life...I'm not so scared. Not yet. Fear is paralysing, and I am no stranger to that weird denial stage. I hate it, and I want to do my best to avoid it. Sure, I'll go through weirdy times, and we'll see how that goes, but I can't worry my head over it now. Not too much, at least.


Anyway, this idea of the things I'm doing now being prescribed 'lasts' is just odd. It's just odd. There's no other way I can put it right now. I mean, I have the potential to feel forlorn about it, realizing that I will only be able to identify myself with the college crowd and lifestyle for only a short time more. And hey, I don't want to be a college student forever, just like how I didn't want to be a high school student forever. But knowing I need to move on in a designated time frame is weird. It'll be fascinating to go out into a world where that isn't so culturally recognized. Like, how long I keep a job is more up to me or a company versus a cultural idea. Does that make sense?

This is all very bungling to talk about, and it is swimming around just below the threshold in my head where my deep emotions lie. I think this forlornness will set it more as the semester goes on. I'm just predicting it a little now.


On to more uplifting things, I suppose.


P.S. I typed 'sad college' into Google images just for fun, and this is the first thing that comes up: