Yikes bikes! Is it me or is everyone beginning to feel the end-of-the-semester crunch? Everyone I talk to is pulling their hair out about something. “I have three research papers due back-to-back, I don’t know where I’m going to live next year, I have to declare a major – NOW, I have umpteen semester projects due, my resume needs serious help – yada, yada, yada.
I admit that I, too, am “feeling the strain, ain’t it a shame? Oh, give me the beat, boys to free my soul, I want to get lost in your rock-n-roll and drift away . . . (yea, yea, yea, yea). Won’t you take me, take me . . .?”
OK, enough already. I’m sad, I know. I’m just a little rattled because I’m going to be a grown-up in a month. I guess legally I am one already, but as my May graduation draws nigh, I’m beginning to feel a little uneasiness about emerging into the “real world.” Prone to worry, it’s a bit disconcerting for me to have no clue about what I’m going to be doing and where I’m going to be living in six months. It’s almost funny, the near hysteria that I’ve worked myself into the past two days. Visions of me in a cardboard box on Gaye Street in downtown Knoxville, proffering a tin cup to passing suits, began dancing in my head. Ridiculous stuff.
The slippery slope began this past weekend when it seems as if everyone I saw asked me what I was going to do after graduating. Sunday morning before church, I was tempted to bust out poster board, sharpies and yarn so that I could hang a sign around my neck reading, “DON’T ASK ABOUT FUTURE PLEASE!” Sure enough; everyone wanted to know my plans, and gave me a sympathetic pat on the shoulder when I said I didn’t really know. My church family consists of the dearest people on the planet, so I didn’t mind that much.
At any rate, I know that it’s big stress time for everyone. For me, I’ve just had to breathe and adjust my perspective. First of all, I know I’ll always be taken care of. Secondly, all these temporary things, no matter how irksome, are insignificant in light of eternity. So, for all of my fellow Bucs who are going crazy out there – take heart! And as always, if you need to vent, you’re welcome to use the East Tennessean as a sounding board.

Author