The C in D.C: Blame It on the College

For a while now, I suppose you could say I have been in denial. Somewhat not ready to admit it. Daily this truth stares me in the face but I have been keen on just…dismissing the facts. However, at this point, one semester officially behind me and a healthy dose of others ahead, I should be sensible about the situation. Come to comfortable terms with things because as they say, it is what it is, right?

Admittedly, I am between a rock and a hard place. One might say stuck between a life and a college place. What I mean by that is at 23 years old (going on 24 cough cough) I am not your traditional student. A modern, perhaps progressive ideal of what students in 2011 look like, but certainly not suffering from fresh-out-of-high-school-free-from-mommy-and-daddy syndrome. Look it up – at this point I am convinced something of the sort actually exists. Yet I am surrounded by just the type: excited, crazy, no thinking gulp drinking scared albeit willing 18-22 year olds; the traditional college bracket. What can I say: I took some time off. And while it isn’t all about age, that all too identifiable number posted on our foreheads for others to determine our worth and maturity (not to be confused with our credit scores which act as a similar discriminator), it is about experience, mindset and continual development. I have always been told I am not a typical ___ year old (whatever age I may be at the time), but instead am more mature and adult-like (whatever that means). Someone even confused me with a grad student the other day. You see where I am going with this?

So while I am fully enjoying all that college has afforded me, be it the curiosity, the education, my peers and our collective community of ambition, I can’t help but grasp that I am in a different lane in life than my fellow Bison. Not necessarily a better or more advanced lane – after all, isn’t life all about perspective? – but a separate lane nonetheless. Case and point: a few weeks ago I found myself invited to hang out at a dorm. Since this is my first semester at Howard, I have a few orientation classes and whatnot in which I have made friends with freshman and sophomores. Drinking at a dorm is something I did when I was 18 and 19 at UCLA and USC, ironically not being in college myself. I digress… now that I am an academic, I fancy myself taking part in all aspects of college life. I had a great time: the 19 year old me drank, laughed, joked, dared and for a few hours completely submerged myself in my friends. Then the 23 year old me came out to play: halted the drinking pre-limit (and proudly sans a hangover), kept an eye on the time to avoid commuting home at an unsafe hour, and watched we gore as 2 particularly robust  freshman boys drank like that bottle of Crown (yes! Crown Royal) was the absolute last bottle that they may ever see in life. My body ached for their inexperienced yet ripened kidneys and I, unlike them, knew their tomorrow would be a painful one.

When I relayed the night to a friend from back home, already out of the college club and in a similar life lane as I, she laughed; partially unsure if I was serious, somewhat confused as to why I would be drinking with illegals (I mean when you put it that way…). She understood my desire to partake in what ‘college kids do’ but was quick to point out that unlike them, I can go to a bar and just socialize with folks in my lane, who also have a legal ID and can guzzle outside of an RA-guarded dorm. Touché.  I do that I assured her, but I suppose in my eagerness to do what I thought college kids did I ignored that I am simply beyond that sneak-a-toke stage. Beyond smuggling Smirnoff into my room under the guise that I’m almost an adult so it’s ok. Beyond calling home for extra money this week because I couldn’t balance my big kid account and now needed a real grown up to bail me out. Beyond not knowing better because I have been there and done that. But it was her phrase “hey, that’s college life” that really stuck with me. What’s college life mean for me? If Jaime Foxx can blame his indiscretions and recklessness on alcohol, can’t I blame my slight whimsy for the next few semesters on the college?

I’ve decided that yes, I can. And then again no, I can’t.

I’m young – 23 and some change – and allotted a pi-esque number of crazy, fun, illogical, last-night-was-insane moments in which I can look back and beyond these priceless college years and onto my youth in general, all whilst smiling. I don’t want to be so stifled in this self-inflicted age genre that I don't explore outside my box. Still, I do know better than to reek havoc simply because I'm in college and that may or may not be what college kids do. I came onto this campus with a personal objective and a unique fire lit under me to continue this journey and finally cross the finish line - regardless of my lane and any other paths I cross doing so. I may not be fresh from high school or under the legal drinking age, but I'm open to this college life and all the madness that comes with it. My college life, that is...