I’m not sure why my dad even thought it was a good idea to take my 6th grade self to see that terrifying movie. I wasn’t mature enough for the images of a creepy, pale, long haired girl torturing teens with phone calls for a week and then sucking the life out of them once their time was up. I still thought Leprechauns were real. I still wore a training bra. My mind, body and soul just weren’t ready. I just wasn’t ready.
I slept with my light on for weeks. Everywhere I turned I saw that long-haired, pale ghost girl coming to kill me. (Although I could have just been catching my reflection in mirrors.) If my TV turned to static while I was watching Arthur after school, I would run out of the room screaming thinking that a terrifying image of a well was about to appear followed by a white hand climbing out and whispering the warning: “seven days.”
Seven days.
Seven days until you die.
I used to imagine what it would feel like if I found that tape and was doomed to die in seven days. If I was just trying to pop in my favorite VHS and enjoy a little “Spice World” before bedtime only to be met with a cursed tape filled with maggots, flies and an elementary girl wanting to kill you in a week. The absolute terror and fear that would consume you, knowing you only had seven days left.
That’s how I feel about graduation.
Seven days.
Seven days until we die.
They tell you to live it up your last week of undergrad. Go out every night! they say. You’ll have no finals! they say. Live life in the moment! they say.
Well bitches, I can’t.
Everything I do, regardless if it’s fun or not, has this haunting feeling surrounding it. There I am, on a party bus living the epitome of the college life. Nelly is playing. I can’t walk in my heels. I really should be studying. I’m drinking cheap beer. Never have I ever felt more like a college student. And then it happens.
“Seven days...” she whispers. That damn pale ghost girl Graduation reminding me what is to come. Suddenly no longer am I a college student. I am that 6th grade girl again, terrified of what will happen in the next seven days. I still believe in Leprechauns. I still wear a training bra. My mind, body and soul are just not ready. I’m not ready.
It’s going to be hard leaving this college life. When else is it acceptable to drink on a Tuesday? Adults don’t burn their brown rice and set off the smoke alarms (sorry roommates). Adults don’t drop their Doritos Locos Taco on the ground, brush off the dirt and say “eh it’ll be fine.” Adults don’t not remember the last time they washed their favorite pair of jeans. I can’t be an adult.
Hell, I don’t even know how to use the post office properly. When I get in line to send a package, I feel like a caveman who has time traveled to the modern day world.
-“This.” (points at untaped, unaddressed, unstamped package) “Send.”
- (confused by Tarzan-esque speech) “Um, okay, miss. Would you like to Express Mail, Flat Rate Mail, Overnight Mail? Are there any breakables, plants, puppies, animals, drugs, small children, narcotics, guns, small guns, fake guns, big guns, guns of any sort that we need to be a aware of?”
- “THIS.” (points at package) “SEND.”
Then I climb up on the counter and beat my chest to show my dominance.
This beer-soaked bubble called Undergrad that we live inside is about to burst. Now it’s just our jobs to figure out how we are going to handle it.
I could burn my diploma in protest like they did to draft cards in the 60s. But I’m afraid of fire and using your thumb to work a lighter requires a lot of forearm strength and I haven’t been to the gym in months.
I could revert back to my child-self and move back in with my parents, have my mom make my bed every morning and my dad fix me a separate meal from my siblings because I only eat food with at least 10 grams of saturated fat. But then again I don’t think I could revert back to seeing my dad walk around in his whitey tighties and watch COPS every night.
I could just go for a Victory Lap and take a 5th year only taking classes that include the word “introduction” in them. But then I go out to the bars and I realize that I’m so old that these bitches probably don’t even know who Cory and Topanga are.
Or I could just punch that pale, ghost girl Graduation in the face, take my diploma in pride and thank this college for the best four years of my life. (And the 10 pounds I gained).
Because let’s be honest, adults don’t know what the hell is going on any more than we do.
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