Feeling Old

I came home somewhat early today with the sincere intention of showering and going to sleep right away. Instead, I found myself sitting alone at my dining room table, surfing the net and reading some ee cummings. Now it's 2am and, exhausted as I am (my eyes keep crossing), here I am, blogging.

Being in the heart of Orientation has forced me to look back on my life, educational, and work experiences, and to condense them into small conversation-appropriate summaries. It's sort of weird: Who am I? Where am I from? Did I like school? Who do I want to be?

One of the biggest things I've realized is how much the past year has aged me. I almost want to use the word "matured", but I don't want to sound like I think I'm mature-- I don't. It's just that the past year threw a bunch of hurdles in my way, and they wore me out. I don't have the same kind of energy as I did, say, during Senior Week at Penn. In fact, my priorities have rearranged entirely. The domestic pleasures of cooking, taking lone walks, sitting in the sun room, and reading the Times have placed themselves at the top of my favorites list. I save the energy I have for the occasional night of fun & frivolity.

So, in our obligatory Orientation social events, I find myself connecting with and relating most to my classmates who have been out of school for some time. Many of them have spouses, some have families. We stand aside as the straight-from-college kids play Flip Cup and we marvel at their energy, at our lack of energy. "I feel old", we say. "Me too." Funny thing is, I'm only a year older, but I feel so much more so.

But could it be that I'm just mistaking a shift to introversion with "old"ness? Or is it one and the same? Is it that, as we get older, we derive our greatest happiness less and less from the acceptance and company of friends, and more and more from the acceptance and company of our loved ones-- of ourselves?