Getting Old
Friday, April 4, 2008
Every single time I see Avenue Q, I cry when they sing "I Wish I Could Go Back To College." I haven't just seen Avenue Q once or twice. I was a part of the entire creative process...from workshop to Broadway opening which means that I've seen the show at least twenty times, probably more. It doesn't matter. That song has the same effect on me every single time. I mean, who can't relate to a puppet singing the lines "I wish I could just drop a class...Or get into a play...Or change my major...Or fuck my T.A. I need an academic advisor to point the way!" Those words seem to resonate with me more and more the older I get. Sometimes I would give my right arm for a freaking academic advisor to point the way.
There have been many different reasons at different times in my life that I've wanted to go back to college - to have almost all of my closest friends within a 4 mile radius, to not have to deal with real adult life, to be able to drink my current self under the table until 2 in the morning and then get up and be ready for a 9 AM dance class with no issue at all, to feel like I have my entire future ahead of me - to name a few. Seldom has my desire to go back to college had anything to do with academics.
But there is that rare occasion that I've wanted to go back to college to learn. I didn't learn nearly enough academically in college. Not because I wasn't given the opportunity - I went to an incredible school. (Go Cats!) BUT. I don't think that I'm alone when I say that learning wasn't necessarily always my first priority in college. It's not that I didn't want to do well - that was EXTREMELY important to me. But learning to do well on tests is far different from actually learning - soaking in the information so that you have it to go back to again and again. In many of my classes, I learned the first way, and I did exactly what I'd hoped. I got great grades. Most of my theater classes were more hands on. They weren't based on tests. They were based on how I performed in class or the projects that I handed in. And those are the classes from which I remember the most. But I often wish that I'd fought harder to get into some of the "impossible to get into" classes. I wish that I'd paid more attention in some of the lectures that were far more interesting than I realized. I wish that I'd taken more classes outside of the School of Speech. I wish that I'd cared less about doing well on tests and cared more about truly learning. But I was 18, 19, 20...and I cared about proving myself in my acting class, and getting a part in "Pippin", and what I was going to choreograph for Graffiti Dancers, and who I was taking to the next date party. I cared about taking a nap in between tailgates and going downtown on Saturday night and I cared about who I was living with Senior Year. I was too busy worrying about those things to truly pay attention in Human Sexuality (which I'm sure was absolutely fascinating but I can't remember a single thing about it.) To be honest, I've forgotten a lot of the classes that I took. All in all, outside of my theater and dance classes and a few others here and there, most of it is a blur.
And by the way, I think most of what you're supposed to learn in college has very little to do with academics. The most important thing that I began to learn in college was who I am. I learned what was important to me. I learned how to stand up for myself and for things I believe in. I learned about the kinds of person that I want to be and the kind of people I want to surround myself with. I met people who have shaped my life in the most important ways. Those are the most important lessons of college and the ones that I'll never forget.
And why is all of this coming to mind right now?
On Wednesday night at 7 PM, I went back to college. I had the same feeling in the pit of my stomach of nerves and excitement and complete unknown as I walked across the completely unfamiliar UCLA campus trying to find Perloff hall. I walked into a lecture hall...A FREAKING LECTURE HALL!!!!! When was the last time you were in a lecture hall? I looked around wondering who all the unfamiliar faces were, wondering about their stories. I felt unbridled excitement about the fact that I was about to learn something totally and completely new. The questions that ran through my mind from the moment I arrived on campus to the moment my professor began the class were exactly the same as when I was 17 sitting in Intro to Sociology...wondering who I might be friends with (I met one of my best friends in that class), would I do well (got my first D on the midterm), wondering what my future held(I was wrong about far more than I was right about).
Except I'm far from 17...I'm Holy. Shit. FIFTEEN years older than I was when I walked into Intro to Sociology in mid-September NINETEEN NINETY THREEEEEEE.
Ummmmmmmmm. When the hell did that happen?
On Wednesday night, I felt old.
HOLD IT. Before I get the emails, the comments, the phone calls saying "Meesh. Don't be ridiculous. You are FAR from old..." please continue reading. Because I'm not actually talking about the same old. I didn't feel old the way we hear so many people talk about being old.
"I'm ooooooold." She'll say with a drone in her voice, trying to explain why she can't stay out late like she once could.
"We're getting old ." He'll reply when he forgets something, sending the old up in his voice like an Jewish man who's been saying this since he was 22, which is part of what made him old to begin with. I've been forgetting things since I was 16 years old and I sure as hell wasn't old at 16.
On Wednesday night I felt old...or at least older in all of the best possible ways. I felt older because I sat in class and I soaked in every moment of the lecture. I was present in the utmost sense of the word. I didn't, not even for a moment, think about my day at work, or what I was going to eat for dinner, or what I could be doing instead. I was there, in class, taking in everything that was possible in those 2 1/2 hours. I felt older because I could appreciate how little I know but also how far I've come. I loved being a student. Since Wednesday night, I've felt invigorated by the sheer fact that I'm going to learn something completely new. I felt old, because as I walked into the lecture hall, with all of the same uncertainty and questions about my future, there was one question that I no longer had to ask. I know exactly who I am. And that feels good. There's nothing wrong with being old.
Posted byMeesh-elle my Belle at 3:50 PM
Labels: life lessons, musings on life
