yesterday i walked across a stage and accepted my college diploma.
the walk was approximately 20 seconds but felt way longer.
although i made that short walk, all i really wanted to do was run. fast and far back to freshman year.
courage may take us places.
but my heart will never leave saint michael’s.
(Source: littlepositivelife)
officially done with colllege.
here’s to two weeks of nights like this.
mornings i won’t get out of bed.
and getting so messed up, we forget what graduation even means.
#yolo #yoyo whatever your phrase, we’re living it up.
Unlike the linked article, I can’t attest (thankfully) to my twentsomethings as a decade.
What I offer you instead, is the beauty of 22. Despite the tears I shed on September 25th, and have done so every birthday since I turned 16, it really is an unbeatable age.
Graduating college is a scary concept. But only because of the inevitables that come along with it. It’s inevitable that they kick us out by 5 pm on May 14th. It’s inevitable that we say goodbyes that aren’t just until the following August. It’s inevitable that we have to get our shit together. It’s inevitable that we grow up.
All of those tings are what we’ve tried to avoid since we waved goodbye to our parents on the first day of college orientation and dug out the bottle of Smirnoff that we hid deep in our suitcase convinced we had fooled our parents this time.
A lot’s changed since then. For one thing, not one of us can afford Smirnoff. Nor would it get us through an entire month like it used to. But on top of our ability to hold our own, for the most part, we have changed.
And although I can’t dictate what changed in each of us, I can tell you what 22 means because of that change.
Freedom.
We thought 18 was freedom. We thought we could fail philosophy and no one would notice. We thought we could go out every single weekday night and still get A’s. We thought hangovers were legitimate tardy excuses.
And then first semester ended.
If you’re freaking out at 22 that you still don’t know what you want to spend your life doing, here’s a secret. None of us know. I’m not saying that at 22 we necessarily know what we want to be or where we want to end up. But at 22, we know that we don’t know. And that’s a scary feeling, but so enthralling - cherish it.
This midpoint of not having to answer to anyone and eventually settling down in the suburbs, is like a no strings attached, floating on air, free falling lifestyle.
We are all bound to be hurt, rejected, over-looked, and under appreciated. But our elasticity is so incredible that it won’t matter.
College is amazing, yes. And it is to be remembered and treasured and I’m sure there will be days when we get up in the morning wishing we could trade in one of those “sleep-deprived” (hungover) excuses to get you out of whatever your responsibilities are that day. We definitely owe tribute and gratitude to our parents for putting us through, despite that failing grade in philosophy, but also to college itself. I do believe it played a strong role in changing and building us into who we are today. But the best thing you can do to show how grateful you really are, is to now act 22.
Take the knowledge you learned and do something with it.
Don’t settle - in relationships, jobs, life in general.
Jump - out of a plane, from a cliff, into a new state. Make your stomach flip in excitement.
Show the world who you are, what you believe in, how you feel about something - we’re the new “it.” We just spent 4 years in institutions teaching the newest of the new material. People want to hear from you.
My goal for 22 is to put every fiber of my being into everything that I do. There is no one I need to answer to. There is no one I need to live for but myself. There are no set commitments. That is the beauty of this midpoint.
The future will come. The suburbs will come. Kids, jobs that require contracts, mortgages; without fail, they will come. But for now, be 22. And do it for as long as you can. Be 22 until you have fulfilled your desire to live in a city; until you’ve accomplished working at a job you didn’t do for the money; until you’ve decided what it is that you actually want to spend the rest of your life doing.
Even if you’re 47 years old when that happens.
Vivir - to live. As a 22 year old.
— Shauna Niequist (via bfastwithtiffany)
(Source: middlenameconfused, via xo-lindsayy)
— Ann Aguirre, Blue Diablo (via simply-quotes)
national princess week.
never heard of anything better in my life.
just in case i haven’t told you lately.
i love that you do this for me.
(via sunflowerstarz)
what if we lived in a world
where everyone just wrote.
you had an idea,
drop everything.
a new invention, a twist in a movie, a title for a children’s book, even a pick-up line.
dropped our jobs, our responsibilities, our commitments.
to stay true to our ideas, our imaginations, our art.
i truly think it would be a better world.
i think we would feel more confident when we opened up.
i feel we would understand the importance of finding the right words.
i know we would be more creative.
and i wonder just how far it would take us.
(Source: inspirinquotes, via inspirinquotes)
craving memorial day weekend in ohio.
simply because it’s new sights, new roads, new scenery.
i want to be anywhere but the places i’ve already been.
(Source: thdandeliongirl, via the-absolute-best-posts)
don't worry about the world ending today. it's already tomorrow in australia.
