The Little Things

Well everyone, I’ve successfully made it through my first quarter of college! It’s amazing how fast time has gone by recently. I can remember moving into my room here at Kalamazoo on August 15th like it was yesterday, and yet here I am, two days away from Thanksgiving break and a month long visit at home. That’s correct, I said a month long. One of the unique, but not-so-great features of Kalamazoo College is that it follows a trimester system. So, instead of having two semesters, we have three “quarters”, as we call them. Therefore our classes are only 10 weeks long as opposed to many larger universities’ 16 weeks. Anyways, I’m starting to stray from the point I’m trying to make, which is that because we are on trimesters, my winter break starts on December 4th and goes allllllll the way until January 4th! Even luckier for me, my classes have no final exams that require me to come back to campus the week following Thanksgiving, so I get an extra week and a half off!

All my friends at different schools tell me about how lucky I am and how jealous they are about me having such a long winter break, however like most good things in life, it comes at a price. That price is staying in school until June while most universities are done as early as the end of April, but usually sometime in May. So as my friends all begin their summers and start to find jobs, I’ll still be hittin’ the books. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the idea of this break I’m about to start, but I definitely won’t have the last laugh in the long run.

It’s kind of funny to see what has changed in myself and my views when I look back over the last couple months. I remember in the weeks and months leading up to my departure from home, I felt so ready, so ambitious to leave and start a new section of my life. I had this overwhelming sense of independence, like I was finally sticking it to the man and living my life. The thought of making all my own decisions and doing everything on my own schedule brought about feelings of great excitement. I was so ready to move out of my house, meet new people, and live on my own. Yet, as I look back, it’s a little disappointing to see how ignorant I truly was. For a while I did feel a sense of independence and excitement of living on my own. But I’ve realized that it wasn’t as “cool” or “exhilarating” as I thought it would be. And that doesn’t mean I stopped having a good time or stopped being excited about school and the whole “college experience,” but I’ve started to realize how much I miss some things. Things that I once told myself would be easy to forget and move on from. Such ignorance. I miss my family, I miss my friends, I miss my house, my car, my cat (sometimes), my aunts, cousins, uncles, grandparents, my town. I could easily go on and list more things, but I’d rather talk about the little things I miss; the things I’ve taken for granted for 18 years of my life. For example, eating dinner with my family; just the four of us. Not only do I miss home cooked meals (because the Lord himself knows you can only take so much cafeteria food) but I just miss sitting at the table and hearing about how everyone’s day went and how things are going. Sure it’s subtle and not a huge or exciting occurrence, but again, it’s the little things I seem to miss most. Another is getting my monthly haircuts from my dad, just sitting on a stool in the basement shooting the breeze with each other while he buzzed my head. Playing ping pong with Cameron. Washing my car on a sunny day. Watching a U of M football game in the living room. Hell, I even miss mowing the lawn.

So, to everyone reading this, (you don’t even have to be getting ready for college) I can’t stress enough how important it is to not take anything for granted. I feel a bit ashamed of myself for all of this, because like I mentioned in my last posting, I try to live my life with no regrets. I understand that my days on this Earth are numbered, and when my time finally does come, I don’t want to look back on my life wishing that I could’ve done something a little bit better or appreciated something just a little bit more. So please, freeze time for just a second, and realize all that you have in your life and what it really means to you. Go beneath the surface, because you’ll be amazed as to how important the little and subtle things in life are.