After a year of literal sweat, tears and a few drops of paper-cut-induced blood, I am relinquishing my central U.Va. leadership position and handing it off to the next victim.
I think I speak for the president of any organization when I say I don’t understand how the Obamas/Bushes/Reagans of the world do it. I couldn’t escape 12 months of leadership without finding a gray hair — yes, it was 100 percent as traumatizing as it sounds — so I can’t imagine going through four years with anything less than a heart attack.
Unfortunately, I will not be headed to my luxe Texan dude ranch to spend the rest of my life chilling while random strangers write my autobiography. But my inbox is the cleanest it’s been since I took myself off of the scuba diving listserv, which makes me one happy Hoo.
After this semester, not only do I get a major chunk of my time back, but I also only have five more classes to take in the span of three semesters. This means I have pretty much no clue what to do with myself. Plausible options include becoming a Bikram yoga instructor — which is not at all motivated by a secondary goal of becoming über fit — or learning how to knit or crochet. I could, perhaps, master a contact sport, but that’s a pretty lofty goal for this chick.
The reality is, though, this moment is a lot more bittersweet than I expected it to be. I keep waiting to feel an immense sense of relief and liberation — and in a lot of ways it’s definitely there. But at the same time, I feel this weird sense of guilt creeping in about being so free, a hidden anxiety coming out from the shadows, telling me I need to find the next most productive use of my time.
I live in a house with 30 girls, and being around smart, young, ambitious people definitely breeds a competitive mentality. When I see other students killing it in their internships or running organizations while being full-time students, I’m inclined to feel delinquent instead of a) recognizing how stressed they are, and/or b) appreciating my own flexibility.
I recently took a look at my resume and realized half of the extracurricular activities I do have nothing to do with anything. Which is, in so many ways, the point. Most of the things you do at college wouldn’t, and shouldn’t, be put on your resume.
In college, we straddle the massive, cavernous divide between the real world and the college world. On one hand, we fight for job experience and always remember that “reality” is only four years away, but we simultaneously live in the land of 11 a.m. wake-up calls and three-day weekends. What you do on one side may very well have nothing to do with what you do on the other.
In the end, that’s really how it should be. Next semester, I will probably take 12 credits and have a minor panic attack about my “slacktivity” in the process. That’s just who I am. But I’m also going to work out every day for the first time in a year. Maybe I’ll get a random job so I can support my increasingly frequent — and concerning — College Inn habits a little more stably.
What I do decide to do likely won’t do anything for my resume, but it will do a lot for me. It’s time to move out of the driver’s seat and enjoy college for what it is — the last four years of life as a student.
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