Sunday, December 28, 2008

sophomore standing

Last week I went to my parents' house for a couple of days for the holidays. It was a mellow, enjoyable time. The house was filled with good, warm smells, my dad played the piano and my brother and I bantered back and forth.

On Christmas eve, I found I couldn't sleep--perhaps a throwback from childhood Christmas eves, or maybe because I ate a box of Hot Tamales at the movies earlier--and so I decided to go through the closet in my bedroom. Among the old graduation gowns, yearbooks, and my high school biology binder, I discovered the diary I kept my sophomore year of college. It was a bit like seeing a bad car accident: I didn't want to look, but I couldn't really help it. I dusted it off, made some tea and climbed under the covers with the highly detailed chronicles of my post-adolescent angst.

Webster's Dictionary defines "sophomoric" as "conceited and overconfident of knowledge but poorly informed and immature." Yep, sounds about right. Every page seemed to describe a different unrequited crush, unsuccessful/inappropriate relationship, or aftermath of yet another party. One could not glean, from this diary alone, that I actually did very well academically this year, chose a minor in psychology, and began to focus my studies on education. Nope--according to this document, all I did that year was think (and dream and cry) about boys and drink beer--and in doing so, took myself very seriously.

Now that I have a job and an apartment and a car and bills to pay and under-eye wrinkles and all else associated with the beginnings of adulthood, I do miss that particular time in my life just a little bit. The days of 4-day weekends, late-night dorm visits and all-nighters are long gone and my crushes take a lot more time to develop these days. My tolerance for alcohol has gone down the tubes, yet my hangovers now are significantly worse, regardless of how much or little I drink.

So every now and then I think about how nice it would be to re-live that era, embracing it more and relishing the fact that the shenanigans of one's sophomore year of college are relatively without consequence. I would, however, probably not repeat the body glitter I was so fond of. That is best laid to rest forever in 2002.

Love,
Gabi

2 comments:

Tara said...

ahh the body glitter! I definitely remember that :) Hope you're well!

Emily said...

Haha. I saw this post and had a flash of sitting on your bed, crying about some boy. Wait, why am I laughing about that?