Barbara Green says timeBarbara Green says timenever slows down, and it isBarbara Green says timenever slows down, and it issometimes hard to believeBarbara Green says timenever slows down, and it issometimes hard to believethat things are over.Barbara Green says timenever slows down, and it issometimes hard to believethat things are over.____________________________Barbara Green says timenever slows down, and it issometimes hard to believethat things are over.____________________________ I have been around for nearly two decades. It is the summer after my freshman year, and I am a 19 year-old College sophomore. But anyway?I'm old. It seems that way, though I don't feel old. When people ask me my age, I'm usually shocked by my answer. The number just gets higher each year! The future, for me, has been unimaginable. I used to think I would die before I got my driver's license. And I never thought I could look as old or know as much as the older people I'd see around me. As a child, I had notions of what being 19 years old would be like. I was slightly off in my assumption, but I kind of knew I would be. You see, I had set age-based expectations of my older brother, too, and was aware at an early age that something was wrong. There was some sort of discrepancy between my prediction and reality. Maybe the difference is not in appearance or scholastic knowledge or capability. Well, maybe it was for my brother; but for me, I think it is in the feeling. I don't feel the way I thought I would as a 19 year-old. I'm still unsure of things, and struggle to keep up with time. I still feel like I keep looking behind me as I move forward in order to see where I've been. I suppose I didn't expect that. There have been times when I've gotten caught up in bustle of things and have started to run on automatic pilot. I've actually "woken up" before and looked down only to see that I was walking. And there have been times when I've gotten half-way to my destination before I realized where I was going. And now I'm one fourth of my way through college. I periodically have to pause and catch up with myself. I have six semesters left. Gone are the days of coming home after school, home-cooked meals and curfews. Gone are the days of college applications, random roommates, and the great unknown of freshman year. There's currently a new class of University students out there, parading as incoming freshmen, and they're coming. I can feel it -- they're coming. I am no longer a freshman. Maybe these newcomers are at home somewhere in the tri-state area, trying to imagine what their roommates look like or writing self-descriptive essays for their faculty advisors. Whatever it is they're doing, they're throwing me off. They're making me think about my new situation. Maybe that's not so bad. It's just hard to believe that my freshman year of college -- a milestone in one's life, you might say -- has come and gone. Come September, someone will sleep in my Community House bed, brush their teeth in my sink and study at my desk. And I'll sleep in a bed someone else considers their own, and I'll look at a room without seeing all of its history. And so it goes? And it's more than just the mere passage of time -- it's the effects that come with it. Whether or not I was fully aware when it happened, I've changed. During the spring of my freshman year, I often thought of how different things looked. I remembered Spruce Street on move-in day, and the Quad the night of the Wild Video Dance Party. Everything just had a different feel. And my neighbors became my friends. Because of the things I've learned and experienced this year, my views have been colored in cases, and reshaped in others. In the course of nine months, time sped by, and I am different. Somewhere in between moving in and moving out, my suburban home-town became cleaner, Philadelphia became smaller, and a ten-block hike became trivial. Psychology became biology, biology became chemistry, and laundry became easy. Hey -- separating colors from whites is highly overrated. I've learned how to deal with people a little better and handle things on my own. But it's hard to realize how much you've changed until you try the old suit on again, or see someone else wearing it. Right now, someone in New Jersey or any other state is sitting at home doing what I did a year ago, maybe feeling how I felt a year ago. And maybe I'm doing the same with respect to someone else. Part of me still clings to freshman year and the clean start of college, which, like age, differed from my expectations. But I know that I wouldn't want to go back. Forward is a great direction, but isn't it odd how it never stops? Time keeps ticking -- when you sleep, when you daydream, when you work? It's alright, though. But sometimes I have to stop as time continues and look at what I've done and am doing. And sometimes I feel a little bit behind, though I think that comes with the territory. As a freshman, the sophomores before me somehow seemed wiser or more experienced than I feel now, but I don't think that's really the case. Maybe I'll seem experienced to the freshmen -- maybe they'll seem younger to me. As I get older, I'm beginning to think I view my near elders with a little too much wonder. But at 19, the proverbial "real world" seems so close in time, though I can't imagine being a part of it. Then again, I am a licensed driver, and I made it to college after all, contrary to what I believed in the tenth grade. And at 19, I do have much of my life ahead of me. Maybe I'll even get used to my age. The future will soon enough become today, as time will not stop for me or anyone. And I'll continue to take the time to keep up with myself. Maybe I'll even revisit my old Quad dorm room one year -- just to see who will be sleeping in that old bed.
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