Screw 17 again - can I be 12 again, please?

By: Jessica Trumbull

Posted: 11/10/09

It's a wonderful time to be a senior. The economy has gone to crap, though they say it's slowly and not-so-surely on the rise. Finding a job is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, let alone securing one; I'm reverting to looking for mere internships just in case all my time spent job searching falls flat on its face.

Everything seems scary, much scarier than it should be. Because Denison is such a bubble-world, I have no idea how to find an apartment or deal with a landlord or even find a roommate (eek, craigslist). I don't know anything about credit, let alone if I even have any. The first semester of my senior year is practically over, and in half a year I'll be walking out into the real world with nothing but a diploma clutched in my sweaty little hand.

Normally I'm motivated by this kind of stress, and I even respond positively to it, but this year is different. As a result of the heightened senior-year fear factor, I've noticed a slightly worrisome trend in my behavior: it appears that, on the cusp of becoming a grown-up, I'm gradually reverting back to my childhood.

When you look through my iTunes playlists, my desire to be back in blissfully-innocent third grade becomes even more evident. My playlist of 90s music consists of just under 600 songs, and when times get rough and I'm drowning in work, rather than beating the stress with something productive like cooking, cleaning or going for a run, I turn up my speakers as loud as they'll go and blast some Backstreet Boys or Britney Spears and dance it out.

A scan through the DVDs I brought with me from home this year is even more proof of this strange and perhaps disturbing phenomenon. Right up front in my DVD case is Robin Hood - not Men in Tights, but the Disney cartoon version - followed shortly by All Dogs Go To Heaven, a personal favorite. I've noticed that I've popped in one of these movies while doing homework more frequently this year than I ever have before.

When I need a break from writing papers or rewriting my cover letter for the 50th time, I also like to search YouTube for clips of familiar Disney songs, as well as the theme songs of my favorite cartoons when I was a kid, such as TaleSpin or Cha-cha-cha-Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers. Bonus points if the songs are in another language - who knew that "Hakuna Matata" in German could be so enjoyable?

All I'm trying to say is that life is hard, and though I know I have to deal with it now and not just someday like it's been in previous years, my brain is trying to avoid it and postpone reality as much as possible by trying to go back to the days when all you knew about a job was that they were for grown-ups and your main concern in life was which dress you were going to put on your Barbie or getting back from church on Sunday in time to hear which song was number one in Casey Kasem's American Top 40 countdown on the radio.

Right now, you're probably thinking what my parents are thinking: quit whining and just grow up already! But there's the rub - it's almost as if knowing I have to grow up is what's subconsciously preventing me from growing up.

Okay, maybe I shouldn't be so overdramatic. It's not like I'm not doing my homework, or that I've replaced polishing my resume with trying to follow along to Darren's Dance Grooves. I know what I need to do as a senior to prepare for graduation and the real world, and I promise you I'm doing them. It's just that whenever I get that panic-stricken feeling that maybe I won't ever find a job and I'll be homeless and starving after I graduate, the desire to watch another re-run of Full House becomes just too overwhelming to ignore.

(P. S.: Am I the only one who feels like they get that feeling about once a day, if not more?)

Is anyone else experiencing these weird symptoms of senior year? I guess I just have a hard time believing that I'm the only one. Maybe I should start a support group or something. At any rate, it would probably be more productive than playing Sonic 3 on my Sega Genesis.