Recently, I watched season 1 of “The Wire” on DVD. It’s a great show, well worth the view. But that’s all beside the point. One episode caught me off guard- and had a bit of a unexpected effect on me. It made me really miss college.

In the show, this character is a heroin addict, and has made a decision to “get clean”. He doesnt have a home, he doesnt really have any friends, he doesnt have any family, so really – he doesn’t have any help to do this. Instead of hanging out in the projects sleeping in abandoned buildings; he starts hanging out in a park, sitting on a bench. The same bench. Every day, just watching people and listening and letting time pass. In the show, it’s actually a pretty lonely and cold feel that you get. But something about this scene made me desperately miss college. I want to be able to just sit down and watch the day go by without any worries, without any cares. That really doesn’t happen to often in the real world.. But in college, there were plenty of days where it did.

In college, things weren’t real. You didn’t owe money (although you were sure in debt), there was always a way to get some food, classes were optional, studying was optional. Something about it was just not real. Some how, some way, I just knew things would work out. That made it dynamic, and that made it fun.

I suppose i’m pretty lucky. I met a great group of friends at the very beginning of freshman year, and we pretty much all stayed friends through our entire tenure of higher education. And there’s just some passively liberating feeling that I don’t have anymore now that i’m in the “real world”. That’s nothing new, i suppose.. I have been graduated for over 3 years now. But that doesnt really change how i feel about anything. I miss walking over to 17c laker village and just sitting on the porch. I miss playing wrestlemania 2000 and super smash brothers for 5 hours at a time. I miss 30 packs of bush light. I miss skipping my one class of the day to go to a concert. I miss calling in sick at meijer. I miss laughing at cechg. I miss making fun of kramer’s imac. I miss our custom names in Revenge. I miss burgetta. I miss laughing at febreze (the person). I could go on and on… I definitely miss college. My immature, childish side will always have a soft spot that wishes college lasted forever.

There are, of course, plenty of things i do not miss… Cobol. Theresa Peterman. Public Safety. Housing. Joe Hornik. Scheduling. Buying Books. Moving. bb.gvsu.edu. River.it.gvsu.edu. Finals. Assembly language. Dishes. ICQ. etc… But, these are really trivial. And don’t hold a candle to the things i have now come to miss.

College really was one of the best things to happen in my life. That’s another one of those wierd decisions. It seems so small, so insiginificant when you’re a senior in high school. “where should I go to college?….. Hmm… How about GVSU.” And then, it shapes your entire life.