I wanted to be nine again. I wanted to be at Beth’s house in New Jersey, before she moved to Florida, talking about how her older sister burnt her hair with a curling iron. I wanted to sleep in bunk beds, surrounded by the safety of her parents and her older siblings. I wanted us to be dependent and together.
Beth had called me on my way out of a late Sunday meeting.
“Next time you come down to visit me, you’re coming to my house! Klodi and I just bought a house! Isn’t that exciting?”
No, that’s not exciting. That’s really strange; you’re only 19.
I didn’t know how to respond. The only coherent thoughts that came to mind were of us 10 years ago.
Beth had been my stable half for nine years. She was always there to soothe me during homesick sleepovers at her house. With her jet-black hair falling to the small of her back and wearing elaborately decorated pajamas, she’d always say, “Isn’t it more fun staying here? You’re fine! We’re together.” We were inseparable playmates. Then Beth’s dad got another job in Florida and that was that.
Though we promised each other we’d stay together forever, letter -writing and visiting weren’t as constant as we thought they would be. By the time we hit high school, both of us were leading separate lives. We barely spoke. It wasn’t until the end of our respective high school careers that email became the medium for a rekindled friendship.
After high school, Beth decided that college wasn’t right for her. She was smart, but school was dragging on and she was ready to start making an income, ready to loosen ties from her parents.
When she told me that she wasn’t going to college, my heart skipped a beat.
“I just don’t see what I would want to do at college,” she said. “I’ve been going to school for 14 years, it’s time to move on, you know?”
“Just give it four more years. You need to go to college.”
My attempt to persuade her didn’t work. I had grown up in a family of first-generation college graduates. My parents worked their way through state colleges, their only goal being to get out of where they had grown up.
Beth’s parents hadn’t gone to college. I suppose my parents’ trust in the value of education rubbed off on me because school wasn’t just school; school was my future.
I took high school very seriously, more seriously than I should have. When I got into Georgetown, it was the validation I had been working for, one that I couldn’t share with Beth. I needed to continue on, to see my life goals come through. No one makes it in the outside world without at least a Bachelor’s Degree, I thought.
My first semester at Georgetown, I lost my way on my supposed academic path. Becoming an investment banker lost its appeal after a mere three months.
We kept in touch throughout that whole semester. The worse school became, the more I opened up to the idea of Beth’s alternate life. Beth had gotten a job in the treasury department of a company. She had a car, but lived with her fiancée, Klodi, in his parents’ house. Her daily life reminded me of my parents’. She worked overtime, got benefits at her job, went to cocktail hour with Klodi. I felt as if I’d fallen behind.
When she told me about her new mortgage, my mind flashed to the time my dad had asked me if coming out of Georgetown with $80,000 in loans was worth it to me. “Yeah, Dad. It’s not like I’ll be buying a house anytime soon. What else will I be paying off?”
Now, at the end of her day, Beth puts tiles down on her new kitchen floor, while I pull my hair out over complex Chinese characters—characters that I may never use again after college.
Our hard days aren’t even similar.
“I had a calculus test today, plus I was up until three reading a memoir,” I told her the other day.
“Yeah, work has been long and then we’ve inherited the problems that come along with owning a house —there’s a leak in the kitchen sink that Klodi needs to fix,” she replied.
A friend told me that college is the best four years ever because “you’re not supporting yourself, but then again, you’re not living with your parents either.” But in many ways, it’s infantilizing.
Maybe Beth lucked out by missing the college experience. Sometimes I think she has taken the fast track to what people want after college.
But I’ve never thought twice about coming here. I’ve never taken a second to think about what I would do without a college education. It’s possible that it’s not the education that I’m so worried about. Do I really need to know about creative nonfiction or the integral of sec(x)? I think it’s the degree I want; the ability to climb the ladder.
“You know, I’ll never be able to walk into the firms you’ll be walking into four years down the road,” Beth said recently, after I had been complaining over general education requirements.
“Yeah, but you’re happy now. Every day is a new one for you, life’s exciting.”
I’m not as bold as Beth. I can’t take a chance on love, I’ve seen what mortgage payments have done to my parents and I think that a ring on my left finger might make me hyperventilate. For now, I need to be here. I’m on the slow track, I suppose, taking my time on life, figuring it all out for at least four years, hopefully preparing myself for the speedy road ahead.
