To Those Still Stuck in High School

My boyfriend is still stuck in high school this upcoming fall, and he's one of those people that enjoys talking about the future. "I'm gonna be an astronaut, and I'm gonna be the first man on Pluto, and I will re-establish its planet-ness!" kind of thing. Where he maps out this epic future of grandeur and whatnot.

Mini-tangent: I saw a guy in a T-shirt the other day that had a picture of Pluto on it, and it said: "PLUTO: Never Forget." It made me smile.

But anyway, he's more or less picked out a college, a career path, a retirement plan, etc. Not that there's anything wrong with this. I did it too when I was a kid. Granted, he has changed these life plans several times since we started dating, but the point is, the kid likes to plan ahead.

And if your parents are anything like mine, they practically shoved "planning ahead" down your throat. I vividly remember when I was about 8 years old, my parents told me, "Okay, so when you get to high school, make sure you take four years of math. You take your Algebra freshman year, your Geometry sophomore year, your Trig junior year and Calculus when you're a senior! And then take Calc 2 and Finite Math when you're in college!" And I nodded my head with excitement (because I was good at math back then), and said, "Yup! Sure will!"

I also distinctly remember summer before my freshman year of high school, I sat with that damned course registration booklet and mapped out my entire high school career in one sitting. I literally picked 8 courses for each semester (I wasn't aware that one of those 8 periods in a school day was actually your lunch hour), wrote them all down, and was like, "Yeah! I'm so ready for high school!"

And then when I got to junior year, I stopped caring, didn't take trig or calculus, didn't even take a math class my senior year, I was actually truant for part of senior year, I hadn't had a "full" schedule since... 2nd semester freshman year? Fuck that, honestly.

Whatever, that's all in the past, I'm done with high school. My point is: Don't bother making all those great plans for yourself. Just go with the flow. It makes me unbelievably sad to see the younger generation (and by younger generation, I mean those younger than myself, so about 1/4 of all my Facebook friends) mapping out their entire lives.

Even my own classmates, including those who were hit pretty hard with senioritis! They all start planning. It's ridiculous. Your plans are going to change. Don't think about adulthood until you really have to.

I'm staring at my medical bills that aren't really mine because I don't pay them but they are addressed to me anyway, and it depresses me. I'm staring at the e-mail I received from Eau Claire telling me that I just signed my life away in student loans, and that after I graduate, I have 6 months to land a job and start paying $50 a month for the rest of my youth, assuming I even make it past 30... and that makes me sad.

I do a lot of "adult" things already. I do my own taxes. I buy some of my own food and toothpaste and stuff like that. I buy my own clothes. I pay for my own gas. I do my own laundry. I read Business Week magazine (but only after I'm done with Seventeen and Cosmo). I'm so "grown up", right?

No, because I gotta start paying for a mortgage or (eek!) actually make payments on my car that my parents told me to pay for myself but I never did and so they just pay for it for me, pay for my electric bills, my cell phone bill, my parents' nursing home fees for when they get too old to function!

I don't even want to grow up. Ever. I want to be slightly grown up, meaning that like, I'll buy my own food and stuff, but I don't want to pay taxes or pay bills. I don't want to do any of that. I don't want to have a real job where I have to actually do work that matters, where I have to work hard to avoid being laid off or watch some asshole get promoted over me. Where I earn a SALARY instead of a WAGE. :( I don't want to grow up! I don't want to leave college!

Okay, I'm not even there yet, but I don't want it to end. I couldn't wait for high school to end, and I know the rest of you who are still there can't wait for graduation either, and that's fine, because high school sucks, but... in all honesty, what is there to look forward to? Bills? Responsibility? Procreation (yuck!)?

And so I'm saying, enjoy your youth while you still can. Don't stress out about making decisions, like which college to go to, what to major in, what career you want. You still have a month of summer left. Enjoy it. Just go a day without thinking about your future and live your life how you want it NOW.

It's bad advice for the long run, and I'm sure you're all just saying, "Well, stfu, you applied for your colleges in August!" That I did. Keep in mind I also changed my mind about which college I wanted to go to halfway through the whole acceptance process. But that's a story for another day.

I guess I just don't know how to convey to you how unbearably sad it makes me to see my friends planning out the rest of their lives. This is the best time of your life. You're young, you're beautiful, most of you are so fortunate, you don't even know. Most of you have cars that either your parents are paying for, or you're just borrowing it from Mom anyway. Most of you have jobs and can buy your own clothes and stuff to continue being beautiful. You're in your prime! Don't waste it all away giving yourself wrinkles stressing about the future!

I'm not kidding. Just relax. If only for a day. Don't let all that higher education/planning for the future BS weigh you down. You'll only get one Summer 2009. Live it up.