Changes

Seems that at this stage in life, everything is changing. Friend relationships take on either a new depth or fade away, as everyone is scattering and making choices and changes of their own. Jobs mean new responsibility and growth as you learn about a world that, no matter what they wrote on your graduation cards, doesn't know yet that you are talented, smart, and vibrant. You make a million decisions a day, a budget that is surprisingly too small for all your expenses, meals for yourself sometimes that aren't nearly as good as mom's. Even your wardrobe changes from sweatshirts and jeans to button downs and "business-casual" slacks. Band bumber stickers come off the back of your car, and in their place goes the company parking tag. Rather than waking up 10 minutes before class and stumbling there as fast as you can, you face the morning rush hour traffic and rather than switching radio stations when the "On the Hour" Traffic Report comes on to find your favorite song, you dial through your presets until you find the lastest way to avoid the 5-car pile-up standstill. You, for the first time in your life, desire to go to bed at 10 p.m. and you wake up on Saturday morning at 6 a.m., despite your best efforts, and spend your one free day, not basking in the sun and shopping, but doing laundry and paying bills. "Office Space" is even funnier. Should you get married or focus on your career? Should you move across the state or stay where home is? Do I move up to the singles department at church or milk that last summer with the college? What in the world is a 401(k)? Why was I in such an all-fire hurry to grow up?
But for all this confusion, it's an exciting time of life. Any dream you dream is still possible. No one tells you what to do anymore (though sometimes now I wish they would). Everyone thinks your an "adult." (Yeah, right, I know better.) Small apartments decorated with mom and dad's old furniture, rationing the few vacation days, struggling with the decison to be responsible and get health insurance, rather than use that money for the IPOD you've been wanting. These are the memories that I know we will look back on in 40 years and say, those were the "good ol' days." Right now, that's just my day.