January 24, 2012 > January 24, 2011
Last January, I was looking for a reason to leave. Fresh off the plane from Buenos Aires, I was cultured, worldly, hungry, and resentful of anything labeled “American.” I discovered I was attractive. I dipped my feet into a modern-day fairytale for a weekend, and when the book shut in my face, I stumbled back to what I knew. I was arrogant in my solitude. I was proud of my uncertainty. I wasn’t afraid to fail, but I’d never admit it to anyone if I did. I felt like I knew everything. College wasn’t worth my time. What could it possibly teach me that I couldn’t learn better somewhere else? And what could any relationship provide me that I couldn’t provide for myself? I relished the thought of a one-room apartment in a different country, I looked at the future and imagined all these things I would prove to other people without once considering myself irrational. I was terrified of settling.
In short, I was an asshole. I let people get halfway close to me before slamming myself shut and strutting away. I probably hurt a lot of them. And for that, I’m sorry.
I don’t regret any decision I have ever made, though between January and June I made some very poor personal judgments. The high that came from six months in another country was understandable, but not the nonchalance with which I treated life back home. When you finally realize you have no idea what the fuck you’re doing with your life yet maintain the confidence to know you’ll succeed…well, that’s when you know what it feels like to be Philippe Petit. And it’s a pretty awesome feeling, if you’re feeling it for the right reasons. If you offered me a hand, I was gone in three seconds. I was on a mission to prove I could succeed and that I could do it alone, thank you very much. I wouldn’t even have to try. The only person to whom I should have proved that was myself. Instead, I elected the goal of getting to sneer and say, “I told you so.”
Well, I could easily sneer and say, “I told you so,” today, but for very different reasons. And I’d be saying it to myself, twelve months ago. Have you ever been jerked out of a good dream? It seems fantastic when you’re in it, but then you wake up to “real life” and it’s so much better? It took being knocked off my (exquisitely decorated - and with contemporary flair!) pedestal to quit being that asshole. And once I did? Well I can tell you, the roses smell fucking delicious.
So, it’s January 2012, and I am engaged. I am graduating in five months with a bachelor’s in Spanish. That abstract blob in the distance we call “the future” is still shiny, appealing, and uncertain. But it’s something I no longer want to face alone. I know that if I had to, I could. And that’s enough for me. The days of walking on a highwire without a safety net are gone, and I am happy they’re gone. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you have to (or should).
I am still ready to taste the independence and responsibility that comes with leaving The Hill, the bubble that filtered everything I experienced for the past four years. I’m stepping out of a shadow - the shadow of my parents, the university, my professors, my peers - along with so many other thousands of early twenty-somethings. We are starry-eyed, stressed, and hopeful, and by the time we look down to see where we’re going, we’re bound to find a few skinned knees. But this time we know how to pick ourselves up, slap on a Band-Aid and carry on.
