Getting older means time for making life decisions nearer

by Hilary McNamara, opinion editor

 

When I turned 21, my brother told me, “Well, this is your last big birthday. You have nothing to look forward to now except turning 50, and then you are over the hill.”

Yes, I am sure all of you are thinking, “What a nice brother she has.” Trust me, you do not know the half of it. That’s a different story for another day. Now that we are in college, our lives are set in fast-forward. Who we were in high school is no more. We are now “young adults.”

            When you are younger, college may seem like a fast-paced game of life. Then, bam, it hits you, 21.  It’s like you pull a go-to-jail card and you are stuck there until you roll yourself out. Well, I have been sitting in jail for a while.

I was asked one day by one of my friends if I knew what I was going to do with my life, because I am getting older and cannot stay in college forever. Ding, a little light went off in my head, and I realized I cannot, unfortunately, stay in college forever. The time to graduate and step out into the big wide world is slowly creeping up on my back.

            Uh, hello? Me in the big world could equal huge disaster. I cannot even pick out what I am going to wear for the day. When I was little, I wanted to be a princess, a vet and a super hero. Unfortunately, I have realized I cannot be two of those things. I still believe I can be a princess, but what girl doesn’t?

Thanks to Charlie and the Plainsman Press, a new world was opened up to me, and I fell in love with editing, photography and basically anything to do with the newspaper. I am comfortable in saying that I could see myself working for a newspaper. But, then comes my second love, horses, and I could see myself owning a barn. My first major was equine science, but I decided to change it because I wanted to branch out. So what to do?

            It seems I am stuck on the same merry-go-round of indecision, and I am getting a little dizzy. I think that the answer to my problem is that I am just going to become a drifter, or maybe a hippie. They seem to have a lot of fun.