It's midnight. Or whatever.
I'm sitting on the blue fluffy thing that takes up much of the corner of my floor. The lights are dim; I've only got one on. My door is closed, so I keep sneaking uneasy glances at it out of the corner of my eye; something I'm not fully aware of. It's a little cold, but I can't quite justify getting up to put on a sweatshirt, or pajamas.
My room's kind of a mess. My roommate and I just reorganized it, and so there's an abandoned chair in the center of the room and the floor is littered with a small, neat pile of dust, candy wrappers, bottle caps and broken pencils. My roommate's bed is empty; she's working, or rather at her family's house, asleep by this time of the night.
The halls are dimly lit and largely empty. There are no voices, no running. Just the occasional noises from upstairs and the opening and closing of the heavy doors at the ends of the halls betray the fact that there are people in the building. It isn't total silence; there's a clock ticking in the corner of the room, and my computer is humming softly; but it's the closest to ambient noise I'm going to get in a college dorm room.
My keyboard pauses, then clicks softly as the refrigerator (small, mildly battered, and close to my seat) kicks in with a heavy whir.
I suppose I've been doing some thinking.
I'd like to find a major. You can't really graduate with a degree in Undecided, or even Facebook. My past opinions on majors, thus far, have been: Civil Engineering, English, History, Computer Science, Criminal Justice, Humanities, Psychology, Creative Writing, Anthropology and Religion. And even though I know it's not possible, it would be lovely if I could just apprentice myself to someone, or if I could take a pilgrimage out to a desert to speak to the Oracle, who would tell me what I'm fated to be. I'd like someone to tell me what to do, and at the same time, I'd hate it with a passion.
An apprenticeship would be nice, though. It seems like a very clean transition to adulthood. Apprentice to Journeyman, complete a masterwork, become a Master, take an apprentice. Cycle.
I suppose I'm mostly just sick of being treated like a child. I'd like a clean cut to adulthood, a public ceremony accepted by society, that people can look at and say, "Oh, they've got their journeyman papers. Okay."
Too many laws and conventions are in place in our Great Country that are targeted solely at age groups. And that's all very well and good, I'm sure, if all people were to mature at the same rate.
But I know people who have passports, un-limited driver's licenses, insurance, cars, houses...and who I would not trust with my brother's pet cat. Likewise, I know people who are in high school who shouldn't have to live with their parents anymore because of the simple fact that they've already surpassed them in taking care of themselves. This isn't always the case. But it is often enough to invalidate the weight placed upon age in our society.
And so I'm sick of not quite being sure of my status, when some people ask me for advice and some people feel obligated to force it on me, when some people listen to my words and hear what I have to say and some people ignore my words as "just another teenager." Wisdom comes with experience, but experience bears only a superficial connection to age.
To that effect, I'm not returning home this summer. I'm not working at my dad's work. I'm not living in the house that, every time I step through the threshold, miraculously transforms me into a much younger person. I'm staying up here, getting my own job, and living on my terms (which aren't likely to be that radically changed from the present.) It's partially an effort for independence, partially my own attempt at journeyman's papers (though when I moved 700 miles away, I feel I could have passed journeyman then) and also partially an experiment. Do I need to return home in order to validate my independence?
I'm giving up hills and trees for this. I'm giving up some friends and some Italian cheese.
But I'm doing it anyway, because this will be, in my opinion, my test for journeyman. And when I pass it, nothing will really change on the outside. But I'll get a hella more confident in my adult status.
