One Last Round

I do not want to grow up. As many positions I have applied for, for as many times that I have updated my cover letter or revised my resume, I have no real desire for an adult life style. As so many of us have already parlayed our ways into the midst of paraprofessional, I think many seniors have enough experience under their belts to openly say, "I do not want to be an adult." Now, I hope none of our parents read this. I expect that mine would be rather disappointed in my above statements. I can more than safely assume that they would curse not only me, but also their current bank accounts for the waste of. what's that? Oh, right, the tens of thousands of dollars spent for me to realize growing up is not on my immediate to-do list come May 16.

While I am at the high school student-teaching, I know the students see me as an adult. I wear a tie. They have to call me "Mr. Andrews." By all means, most of the kids think I am getting paid for my services there. To them, I am a fully-realized adult in the flesh. The students think about all of the student teachers. I assume that most other interns are given the same title. As interviews for summer positions open up, as human resource officers push salary negotiations across the table, we are all looked at in a professional light.

I can safely say, though, the minute the students aren't looking, moments after supervisors have walked away from our cubicles, and the second we get into our cars after an interview, we do one thing - we revert back. The blazers come off, the high heels are traded in for flip-flops, and the thirty resumes left over from the career fair are quickly traded in for thirty beers from the fridge. Not one of us is ready to grow up, and if you are, you must have wasted part of your time here at Assumption because I am not willing to give up that beautiful, fun-loving, free-living world I have built here among my friends. Yes, that is a rather presumptuous statement to make. Luckily, the only people who actually read this column would agree. The people who disagree are most definitely reading The New Yorker, and not the smut column in the school newspaper.

I know I am not the only person who can say I still act like one, big child. Most of the senior class could easily be cast in a sequel to Big. I'll jump on the giant piano and try to stomp out a song any day of the week at some children's museum over sitting in a corner office with a bay window. I saw someone throwing water balloons out of their third story window the other day. There is always a game of catch, Frisbee, or some form of horseshoes (Polish or not) on the lawn of campus. Girls scream Disney show tunes. Are these signs of adulthood? Absolutely not. Is this the way to end our senior year? One hundred percent.

So, here comes my big question. Once we leave this gated community, have we become adults? Technically, we all legal came of age a few years ago, but as the saying goes, age is only a number. Does a diploma in hand change that? Do loan payments every month for the next ten years deem grown-up status? I sincerely hope not, because that looms in the very near future.

Then how do we play both sides of the field? Most of us are reluctant to take the plunge into adulthood, where drinking on Tuesdays is deemed not only irresponsible like at college, but now a major life problem, where khakis are the norm and sweatpants are for weekend wear, and where friendships consist of working relationships and old family friends, rather than the rambunctious crew you rolled with on Saturday night. Is there a healthy middle-ground, an optimistic limbo allowing us to drift from child to adult seamlessly combing both stages?

I hope so. I can see it with some of the teachers I work with. The smiles that never seem to fade, the jokes that can make even a crude young man like myself blush, the compliments to my colleagues' outfits considered "cute" or "hot" - this keeps my faith alive that growing up doesn't mean leaving it all behind. Of course, there is the counterpart: the crotchety matriarch who scolds the younger employees for breaking policy, the person whose temper blows over gum-chewing, the adults who constantly say that youth is wasted on the young. Well, I believe youth is not frittered away on our age group. I can see we have all taken clear advantage of our age and body's rejuvenating powers (thank you, young and healthy liver), our care-free ideas and the days before bills pile up and the world smacks us into reality. So, live it up now and forever. Growing up is only a lifestyle choice.