Missing the Mundane

“College is the best 4 years of your life”

It was hard to believe that life was supposed to go downhill after college. I loved my time in college but I was also swamped with engineering school work, crying after tests, pulling all nighters, trying to keep it together when no one understood the math on tomorrow’s exam. (Once you got to senior year you replaced that stress with drinking and that’s how we got through our capstone). Why did post-grad life not have the same level of happiness? What was it about college that was “better”? Was it the partying? Always seeing new and familiar faces? The bubble and security of the college campus?

Well 3 years later I can still party with friends, although I’ve come to discover I don’t really like it. (I’ve turned into a grandma who loves sleeping at 11 PM on the weekends and waking up at 7 AM to do yoga and hike with my dog). I have some friends in the area, and others aren’t too far or we make frequent phone calls.

So what is it that made college so much fun?

I think it was the mundane. It was being able to lounge next to each other for hours, clicking away at separate laptops, not speaking, just comforted by the presence of your friend. Being able to walk downstairs to the dining hall and see a friend that you can sit down and eat dinner with. Grocery shopping together because I didn’t have a car. Always having a Netflix buddy. Always being able to see familiar faces. A new person to chat with every day. Surrounded by your support group. Having that sense of community.

As adults we are isolated. We sit in our apartments and drive to work. You start to text your friend but realize they’re at a work happy hour. You call you other friend but they’re across the country in a different time zone and still at work.

In your loneliness you figure out how to keep yourself busy. That busyness grows. Hanging out with friends requires advanced scheduling. We so seldom see them that when we do it’s to reconnect with what we’ve been doing the past month. When we’re done catching up we go back to our apartments. We need to get back to those things that are keeping us so busy.

I can’t change how far away my community is, but I can hit pause on busyness. No more endless social media scrolling. It’s ok if I can’t eat at a fancy restaurant this weekend. No one will be missing the Instagram pic. As the busyness melts away, the mundane begins to appear.

The other day an out of town friend was visiting. I pestered him about what he wanted to do. Hiking? Shopping? Checking out a new restaurant? C’mon what do you wanna do? We ended up watching TV, grocery shopping, making chicken wings from scratch, and then taking a nap.

It was a mundane Saturday. I can only hope for more.

Originally published at justl12.wordpress.com on January 26, 2019.